


December

by TaFuilLiom



Series: Septenary [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-03-31 02:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 40,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13965609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TaFuilLiom/pseuds/TaFuilLiom
Summary: Sitting in the front seat, Alex thought she should interact with them, join in the fun. Take off her seatbelt, eat something, do something. But she couldn’t. She was just staring the the registration of the car in front of where they were parked, reading the numbers and letters over and over until the shape of them became meaningless symbols.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Time to reset the clock and start from the beginning, this time from Alex's perspective. This chapter will be very familiar to those of you who read Turncoat, and then branches off from here.

_“It’s like her mind is drowning and it’s pulling her body down with it.”_

_“Just say it, Alex. She’s dying.”_

 

  * **_**_Alex & J’onn, 2x10._**_**



 

Alex had known humiliation before, shame before, regret before.

Once upon a time, they were familiar friends that greeted her every morning, or afternoon, depending on when exactly she finally roused from sleep in her college dorm, or on her bathroom floor, or in a stranger’s bed.

But they hadn’t been around in years, not in that particular kind of cocktail.

The first morning that she woke up and blearily realised she had called Maggie the night before, they rushed back to her.

She wanted it to be a one off, but she was drinking to forget, and throwing all thoughts of limits and dignity out of the window. It became every night, at the same time, when that lonely voice would urge her to pick up the phone and call Maggie. Three sheets to the wind, she did.

She struggled to recall what she said in these phone conversations, but she couldn’t imagine that it was anywhere near coherent. Just a desperate, jumbled mess.

One morning, she woke up with Kara in bed beside her. She rubbed her eyes, her throat dry.

“What’re you doing here?” she mumbled.

Kara scrunched her face up. “Maggie called me.”

Alex froze, suddenly wide awake. “She what?”

Disorientated with sleep, Kara sat up and patted down her hair. “She told me to go check on you, and didn’t answer any of my returning calls last night.” Her hands flopped back onto the blankets as she looked down sympathetically. “I guess I figured out why.”

Alex blew out a breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. The beginning of a bad headache pulsed behind her eyes.

“I’m such a mess.”

“That’s okay. You’re only human.”

Alex slapped her with the back of her hand, but they shared sleepy chuckles anyway.

~

A month of frosty run-ins at crime scenes, and Alex was worn to the bone.

Night after night, she would drink. Then she would call Maggie. Then, she would wake to that dancing trio of humiliation, shame and regret. When they were sober and face to face, Alex couldn’t bring herself to even acknowledge her. She was terrified of what she would find there; disappointment? Pity? Hostility?

Standing at the edge of the scene as she spoke with Agents Benston and McGuire, she could feel Maggie’s eyes searing into her back. They were plain-clothed and observing, not on a specific mission, but she knew there was no way she could blend into a crowd where Maggie was concerned.  

“Everything seems to be handled with the NCPD, Agent Danvers,” Benston reported.

Alex nodded. “But keep vigilant. The evidence they’ve been handing over recently has been tampered with.”

A cruiser started up behind them, and Alex couldn’t help looking as it passed: Maggie’s jaw was set, her resolve strong as she ignored the DEO agents, and Alex’s stomach sank. Only a few months ago, they were sitting in that very car on a stake out, sharing coffee and bantering about their wedding plans.

Agent McGuire handed her a file a few days later, saying, “Agent Danvers, you were right. There is a problem with NCPD cooperation.”

Alex opened the report, scanning it as the agent continued, “The alien weaponry from the parking lot earlier has had components removed. Compare it to the scan we were able to get at the scene before it was bagged.”

She did, and found the discrepancies. She flipped the file closed. “Thank you, Agent McGuire.”

That afternoon, she stalked into the precinct. The reception was cool. A lot of the beat cops sniffed her out as FBI, but she was clearly recognised by the woman working the desk when eyes narrowed. She wasn't clocked as a federal agent; she was the one who broke Maggie Sawyer’s heart.

“I need to speak with Detective Sawyer.”

The blonde woman at the desk looked past Alex at two uniformed cops, raising her eyebrows. “Hear that, fellas?”

They shifted from foot to foot as Alex turned to stare at them. They looked at her with disdain, and she couldn’t help the prickle of unease over her scalp.

She snapped back to the blonde woman. “Forget it. I’ll go and find her myself.”

The receptionist sneered, going back to her keyboard and monitor.

Alex pushed off the desk, heading for the stairwell. Reaching the floor for the Science Division, she bumped into Detective Farson, who grunted when he recognised who it was.

“You sure you should be here, fed?” He spat the word like a curse.

She gritted her teeth. “I’m looking for Maggie.”

“She hasn’t come back from lunch yet. If you wanna wait in one of the interrogation rooms, I can send Sawyer in.” He took a step closer. “ _If_ she wants to see you, that is.”

Maggie was always a good cop in duty and deed, and while she took no partners, she had earned the respect of her colleagues enough to be accepted as one of them. That meant, to them, she was part of that infamous thin blue line.

They protected their own.

Farson having a stand-off with her in the corridors, the air of intimidation, all of it would still have been there if she walked in and flashed an IKEA family card instead of an FBI badge. She wasn’t just a trespassing federal agent.

She was the _ex_.

“Fine,” she said, heading for Interrogation Room B.

She paced until she was sure there would be a hole in the floor, and then she paced some more. The sounds of the station were shut out, and paranoia seeped into her thoughts each time she caught a glance of the dark observation window. She suspected that this was Farson’s intention when he sent her here to wait.

Eventually, Maggie entered, closing the door behind her. “What is this about?”

Alex drank in the pressed slacks, the blue button-up. Maggie rarely adapted such an East Coast style, but when she did, she was a vision.

“Hello to you too.”

Maggie was having none of it. “Stop messing around. You’re here on business, so let’s get down to it.”

The impatience stung, but Alex fixed her suit jacket around her shoulders and dove straight in. “That gun that you handed over to us yesterday passed through more hands than the information we were given, and we can prove it.”

“Okay.”

Maggie had a poker face that could rival any player’s, and body language expert or not, Alex found it hard to crack her expression every time.

It was a pretty serious allegation, Alex knew it. The crime itself hadn’t been serious; an unregistered gun from Heronia discharged and abandoned in a NC-Market store parking lot. Not one had been hurt, nothing had been damaged, just the tree whose branches were now a little singed.

But the next investigation could have much higher stakes, and she wanted to nip this in the bud now.

Alex took a step closer. “We need to talk about the problem your department has with the chain of evidence. This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

“Me, personally?” Maggie crossed her arms and stood her ground. Alex admired her strength, but then again, she had seen her when she was weakest, so how much of a threat could Alex really be?

“No, not _you_ , Maggie.”

“In that case, why don’t you take this up with my superior?”

Alex’s reasoning wobbled, realising too late her deep-seated, selfish motivations for being here. Maggie realised them too, latching on like an attack dog and refusing to let go.

“See, you just wanted an excuse to talk to me, and that’s fine,” Maggie said, stern and hard. “But every time you _do_ talk to me, you refuse to bring up the phone calls.”

The noise that Alex let out was nothing short of a whine. “Maggie…”

“Alex, or Agent Danvers, or whatever hat you’re wearing today-” Maggie waved her hands around. “You need to decide whether you wanna really talk this out with me, or just keep this professional. Because I can’t do this hot and cold thing. I can’t go back and forth with you. Get your shit together, and decide what you want. Then call me. Sober _.”_

Alex didn’t get time to respond before she stormed over to the door and threw it open.

“Now, get out of my station.”

After that, the calls stopped.

~

It took 9 days- _not that she was counting-_ but Alex eventually did work up the courage to call her. Sober.

It was a brief conversation. She hastily apologised for the past few weeks and offered to gather Maggie’s stuff together for her to collect. Discerning that they were both off on a Tuesday afternoon, arrangements were made for Maggie to come then.

When Alex opened the door, she gave a small smile, conveying from the outset that she wanted this to be peaceful. She closed the door behind Maggie and rolled her shoulders. It was a formidable situation, having her ex-fiancee back in her apartment, but she had lit the match that burned down their relationship, and knew she had to be a big girl when faced with the aftermath.

She indicated a box on the dining table. “That’s the last of it.”

Maggie didn’t even look at her when she said, “That jacket you’re wearing is mine.”

Alex looked down in surprise, stretching out the sleeves. “Oh. I’m sorry. I think I’ve mismatched it with one of mine.”

Maggie sighed, bracing her hands on her hips. “It’s fine. Keep it. Looks better on you anyway.”

Somehow, they both gravitated to the box. She had neatly folded Maggie’s clothes, and grew anxious when she saw the detective’s eyes fix on something in the box. It took her a few beats to realise what she was staring at-

An air hockey puck that they had pocketed from a bar they visited a week before Cadmus and Jeremiah blew Alex’s life apart. The night had been one of those spontaneous dates where a last minute idea turned into a night that she never wanted to end. Trading light insults and batting the puck back and forward, Alex couldn’t remember laughing that much on a date.

She had slipped the puck into Maggie’s jacket pocket, a juvenile thrill running through them both that something so trivial could feel so wrong.  

Both of them reached out for the puck at the same time, their hands bumping into one another.

Alex’s breath caught. That tension that had been buzzing inside ramped up a few notches, and she suddenly realised the currents that she had been swimming against were more a product of lust than shame.

Maggie looked at her, eyes glanced once to her lips, and Alex gave in.

She dipped forward, pressing her lips against Maggie’s, feeling her entire body stiffening in reaction. She was about to draw back when something landed on her foot and rolled away. Hands climbed up her sides to the front of the jacket, gripping as Maggie kissed her back.

 _This is a terrible idea,_ she thought, circling her arms around Maggie’s waist and pulling her closer.

_Bad, bad idea. We should stop._

But then Maggie’s hands were pawing at the jacket, and Alex shrugged it off quickly just so she could keep touching this woman she craved.

After that, it was as easy as muscle memory, as falling back on reflexes.

She wasn’t thinking about whether the glass table was stable or not before she was lifting Maggie onto it. Honestly, Alex wasn’t thinking about anything when Maggie bit her lower lip and pushed herself into her touch.

Raking her teeth along Maggie’s neck, sucking over her pulse just the way Alex remembered she liked, any tiny voice of warning was silenced. With an exaggerated slowness, she weaved her hands down Maggie’s body to meet at button of her jeans, and undid it at the twitch of hips.

And then a second of searching fingertips, and the world narrowed further.  

Being inside Maggie again, fingers buried in slick, wet heat, was visceral. Alex didn’t focus on a single thing apart from making Maggie groan her name against the skin of her neck. Her free hand pushed against the other woman’s lower back, encouraging the entire time, until the hands in her hair gripped and Maggie cried out in release.

Alex pressed her lips to the crook of Maggie’s neck as the jerking eased down to tremors, and as the heat of the moment cooled down, all that remained was their heavy breathing.

And she seized with realisation.   

Maggie untangled her hand from her hair, using it to keep her upright. As carefully as she could, Alex pulled her fingers out and leaned back, heart thumping in her throat.

“I…” _Just fucked you on my dining table-_

“It’s okay,” Maggie assured thickly.

It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. And she had nothing to say to make it better.

“I should go.”

Alex put distance between them immediately and turned away, hearing Maggie slide off the table and fix the zipper on her jeans. Her fingers were sticky, and waves of self-loathing and revulsion rolled through her.

The door shut, and she raced to wash her hands, tripping over Maggie’s jacket, which was still on the floor. Coming back to retrieve it, she blinked in surprise at the black disc. She picked it up, and clenched it in her fist.

The damn hockey puck.

~

It had been a bad day.

 _A very bad day_.

The medical staff zipped up the pair of bodybags, and her gaze lingered on the white DEO falcon crest. As she marched down the corridor, she came across a wheelchair outside of the medical bay. She ran a fingertip over the groves of a wheel, wondering what it would be like to wake up and be told that you would never walk again.

Pancake collapse. It sounded harmless, like something that first graders would learn about. But after the initial explosion, it had claimed the lives of some who had already entered the building. She would have been inside as well, if she hadn’t been outside arguing with a NCPD squadron commander about clearing out the scene, with Maggie trying to play peacemaker between them.

 _God_ , she needed to go to a bar.

By chance, not a minute after she got there, her heroine strolled in. Alex nodded her acknowledgement, and went back to staring at the bar taps.

Maggie took the stool beside her. “You ordered yet?”

“Just got here, actually.” Alex couldn’t help but wrinkle her nose at the familiar smell of iodoform. “Hospital?”

Maggie nosed the collar of her jacket. “Do I really smell that sterile?”

Alex’s lip quirked at the edges. Too much raged inside for her to feel even the slightest heartbreak at Maggie being there. She kept replaying it over and over: pointing a finger at the commander, Maggie putting herself between them and trying to placate her, and then diving towards her as the building’s windows blew out and-

Maggie ordered two shots of whiskey, waiting until they arrived until she spoke again. “Three officers dead.”

Alex nodded, accepting the glass that was slid to her. “Two agents. Another won’t walk again.”

They clinked their glasses together and downed their shots.

“You want something else?” Maggie offered.

Keeping her eyes on the sticky shot glasses, Alex considered it. But alcohol wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t let her release her frustration. Not like…

Not like fucking would.

As chance would have it, the look in Maggie’s eyes told her that her ex-fiancee was thinking along the same lines.

“We shouldn’t,” Alex tried.

“But we will.” Maggie threw money onto the bar and swaggered away into the crowd.

Alex found her in the alley, reading her phone against the wall. “Took you long enough, Danvers.” She looked up. “Cab is 4 minutes away.”

Maggie gave the address for Alex’s apartment, and she didn’t argue. A hand squeezed at her knee in the darkness of the backseat, and she didn’t push it away. She followed Maggie into the elevator where they stood side by side, silent, like neighbours waiting for the right floor.

Alex wasn’t sure what changed once they reached the apartment, what came over her as soon as they crossed the threshold. Nor did she know what made her grip Maggie’s wrists and pin them above her head before capturing her lips in a needy kiss.

She wanted to say _thank you_ , she wanted to say _take me back, please_ , she wanted to say _if you hadn’t argued with me and the commander or shoved me out of harm’s way-_

But instead, she pushed her ex-fiancee down onto the bed, eliciting a gasp of surprise. She tugged off Maggie’s shirt as boots were kicked off, and then she took off her jeans, leaving her on the edge of the bed in her underwear.

Alex pushed at one shoulder until Maggie lay flat, and then she leaned over her, bringing them together in another heated kiss, feeling the warmth of Maggie’s bare flesh through her clothing. One knee on the bed, half-standing, she unclipped Maggie’s bra and threw it to the floor.

Dark eyes and kiss swollen lips coaxed her- _dared her_ \- to take. One of her hands slid up Maggie’s sternum, skimming between her breasts to her throat, finding purchase. Despite the heady air, she trained her eyes on Maggie’s, waiting for affirmation. The woman beneath her nodded, hitching her hips up. With her free hand, still half-kneeling and leering, Alex pushed into her underwear.

She had never considered herself a ravishing lover, not with Maggie and certainly not with the men before, but something had clicked out of place that day, and it fuelled her as she focused on possessing Maggie in a way she never had when they were together.

When Maggie came with cry, Alex knew she was in for similar treatment. She slid her palm down from Maggie’s throat, down over her sweat-slicked chest, where her wrist was caught in an unyielding grip. She was yanked down onto the bed, flipped, and worked beyond compare.

In the thick silence of the aftermath, when they had both caught their breath and were staring at the ceiling, Alex realised that something had been fractured between them. Their break up had been a clean break, if she thought about it clinically. But this had splintered that, possibly beyond repair.

Maggie slid from the sheets, and Alex heard her rooting around for her clothes in the dark. She almost reached for the lamp to help. _Almost_.

“This can’t happen again. It was never us, Alex,” Maggie said levelly, buttoning her shirt.

Alex didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at her as Maggie continued to dress. Tears tickled her flushed cheeks as they escaped the corners of her eyes. They had taken something important to both of them and made it dirty. When Maggie left the apartment, the door’s click echoed in her head a hundred times.

In the morning, she found that the puck was gone from where she had set it on the table near the door. She placed her fingertips on the space that it left, and grew frustrated when tears sprang up. It was just a damn _puck_. Why was she crying?

Slumping back against the wall and sobbing into the palm of her hand, she knew she was kidding herself.

There was more lost than just the puck.

~

Alex didn’t see Maggie after that, at crime scenes or otherwise. Guilt flooded her since that night, but gradually, like water pouring into the bow of a sinking ship. Every day, her footsteps were heavier, the days dragging.

A few weeks slid past, and just when Alex was full to the point of lethargy, the storm hit;

“Alex, there’s something you should see,” Kara said, tugging her out of knife practise without further explanation.  

Winn spun in his chair, batting at the arms and then pointing at her. “You haven’t seen Maggie lately, have you?”

“Not for a few weeks,” Alex admitted, glancing between him and Kara and hoping they assumed it was case-related. “Why?”

Winn’s eyes bounced from Kara and back. “I think she might be missing.”

“Missing?” A chill pumped through her veins, her face growing cold.

He turned to the computer, beginning to type. “Maggie didn’t turn up for work two weeks ago. I noticed a sharp drop in her badge number appearing on our scene scanner, right to zero. And uh…she isn’t on leave.” On the display, he brought up NCPD records, logs and emails. “She isn’t at work. She hasn’t left, or transferred. She wasn’t injured on the job. She’s just gone. All calls go to voicemail.”

Alex drifted forward, reading the dates on the logs. “She’s disappeared?”

“Vanished,” he confirmed. “And um, there’s more.”

She came back to his work station as he plugged in a hard drive and loaded it onto the screens. “I hacked into some recent NCPD records. Someone keeps changing names on reports, so it looks like she signed off on cases she wasn’t even working on.”

Alex blew out a breath, trying not to fear the worst. “Is she being framed for something?”

Winn shrugged, ruffling his hair. “Maggie’s lieutenant brought it up with NCPD brass at a meeting last week. He made an official motion of concern and asked for an inquiry, but was turned down and told that it was above his clearance.”

“Above the clearance of her own lieutenant?”

He nodded. “He kept minutes of the meeting in his intranet-cloud account, which I obviously wormed my way into.”

“She could be undercover for another department. Or another agency,” Kara suggested.

“Like sheep-dipping?” Winn added.

“She could have been lifted,” Alex said, craning her neck in search of J’onn.

Kara’s head zipped around, incredulous. “You don’t think Cadmus took her?”

“In which case,” a voice said. Mon El marched into the room with J’onn in tow. He set his hands on his hips. “She could betray us, like your dad did.”

Alex’s whole body seized, anger eclipsing her sense of rationality. Winn eased his hand around her wrist, squeezing once and then falling back again.

“J’onn, you’re psychic,” Alex said. “You would have known.”

He frowned, reading the information on screen. “True, but I’ve been wrong before. And when it comes to Cadmus, anything is possible.”

Winn shook his head. “No. I don’t believe it. When I say someone’s a good egg, they’re a good egg. And Maggie Sawyer is a damn good egg.”

Kara turned sullen. “Winn-”

“Nope. Until the woman herself holds a gun to my head and tells me she’s Cadmus, I’m not going there.”

Alex took in the steely reserve in his eyes as he stood up beside her, and she felt relief that someone else was in her corner.

“Alex, thinking like this is a weakness,” Mon El insisted.

“You think that the woman who shared my apartment, my _bed_ for almost a year is now going to come and kill me? Or sell us out to someone else who will?”

“It’s not the first time you’ve put your heart above your head,” he challenged. “Last time you were almost flung into space. You want that again?”

Alex snarled, ready to go for him when Winn shot up. J’onn still stared at the screens.

“Hey, man from Daxam? Go cool off.” He turned to Alex, and seemed to muster a lot of courage before taking her by the arm and swinging her towards her own lab. Kara followed them, keeping her distance.

Alex marched into the centre of the room, and lashed back around to face her sister.

“Do you agree with him?” she asked right away.

“No. But I also don’t know what to think, Alex.” Kara looked at the ceiling. “This isn’t like Maggie.”

“What are we going to do?” Winn asked.

“Our jobs, for now,” Alex said, even though glass shards pierced her heart. “Until we have more information.”

He nodded. “I’m on it. I’ll keep tabs on NCPD feeds.”

Kara agreed, “Good idea.”

Alex sighed, turning away from them. _Where are you, Sawyer?_

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all know where this is going...

The afternoon sun had cooked the lab, and while lights had long since been switched on and night fallen outside, that stagnant heat remained. 

Alex made a face at the stickiness of her plastic goggles as she peeled them off. The past few days had been like wading through muck, sinking deeper, with land seeming farther away with each step. Maggie had dropped off of the radar, and despite Winn tracking the few reports that cropped up with her name, there was not much else to build a lead on. 

In fact, there was nothing at all. 

She and Kara had turned up at the address of Maggie’s new apartment, but after a scan through the walls by the kryptonian, they found no trace of life. The knocking certainly wasn’t answered, and nothing seemed disturbed inside. It was just like Maggie had disappeared into thin air.

Alex had been working at the DEO long enough to suspect otherwise. 

She set down the goggles and wheeled away from where she was working. She stared up at the ceiling panels, counting the stains and wiggling her fingers. She felt impotent, if she was honest. Cadmus was her gut instinct, and tackling it wasn’t just an uphill climb; it was an invisible menace. As for Maggie, she had been on the force long enough to make a few personal enemies, and Alex wasn’t sure where to start. 

There came a knock, and she looked up to find Kara inching into the lab with her tail between her legs. 

Sensing immediately that bad news was coming, Alex asked, “What is it?”

Kara stepped closer. “I was flying today, and I thought maybe I could reach out and…” She waved her hands around her head. “Alex, I can hear her, in the city, but I don’t think she’s with the NCPD.”

Knowing instantly who Kara was referring to, Alex’s initial reaction was alarm, but her sister looked guilty, not frightened. 

She clenched her fists as she deciphered the words, hearing what Kara was saying without actually _saying_ it. “Not you too.”

“Wait, Alex…”

She shot up, gathering her things. “I don’t wanna hear this.”

“It could be nothing-” 

In her haste to leave, Alex knocked a beaker onto the floor, and they flinched as it smashed. She stood back as Kara swept in to clear it up. 

Rushing to finish the task, Kara clarified; “I just-I didn’t know the Science police went undercover.” 

When the glass was safely disposed off, Alex stalked out of her office without replying, Kara hot on her heels. “Wait, Alex, where are you going?”

“Home to cool off.” 

Kara protested the entire way to the underground garage. Alex opened her saddle bag, sliding out her jacket and unlocked the helmet slung over the handlebar.

“You’re still in your uniform-”

“I’ll change at home,” Alex growled, pulling on her jacket and zipping it up. She straddled the bike.

“Alex,” Kara pleaded, wheeling around in front of the bike and putting her hands on the handlebars. “I’m sure there’s a reason for this.”

“No,” Alex barked, pointing a finger at her chest. “You think Maggie has been taken by Cadmus, and could be turned like dad was, I can hear it in your voice.”

“I don’t think she’s willingly gone. She could be infiltrating, or being held as bait, maybe nothing at all.” She took her hands away from the bike, fiddling with the strap between her hand and thumb. “But Alex, when Jeremiah-”

“This isn’t about dad!” Alex shouted, booming around the garage. “This is about you blindly taking Mon El’s side, and not trusting me to have learned from my mistakes.”

“But they could hurt her, or blackmail her. They could force your hand again, Alex. They know how much you care-” 

“Enough,” Alex warned. 

Kara deflated, pressing her lips into a tight line. She stepped away without another word as Alex jammed on her helmet and started her bike. Not sparing another second, Alex kicked the stand away and tore out of the garage.

She was  _ raging _ . Possibilities started to stitch up unrelated knowledge in her head. If Maggie had been a detective with the Science Division for so long, why had they only just met when they did? Why not before? Why only when Cadmus began to rear its ugly head?

There was no way Maggie could have been embroiled in Cadmus throughout their entire relationship, it wasn’t possible. Alex would have known she was sharing a bed with an enemy agent, wouldn’t she? Maggie had helped Alex try and save her father. No, she was probably targeted because of their relationship, because they knew it would get under Alex's skin the same way using her father against her could.

She cut a corner too close, too fast, but didn’t slow her speed, feeding on the quasi-paranoid, irrational vein that she had tapped into. Kara was right, Maggie could be bait. If there was anyone that Alex would stop the world to save, it was her. 

Streetlights blurred at each side as she pushed through an orange light, only a fraction of a second before it changed to red. 

Maggie could be enduring endless torture, or being mind-controlled. Cadmus had been birthed as a military project, after all. For all she knew, Maggie could be strapped down, cloth over her face, being waterboarded for information about the DEO, or informants, or a wealth of other things she was privy to when she was engaged to Alex. 

She raced faster, the image becoming a spectre in the streets with her. 

Regret set in that she had been so quick to dismiss Kara’s apologetic tone, that she hadn’t just stopped and asked her to explain what she had experienced when she was flying-

The next light changed to green before she reached it, and she revved her bike as she breezed onto the intersection. 

A horn blasted and she was blinded by headlights from her right. She just had time to whip her head around before a car crashed into her bike, tossing her into the air. 

Suspended, her loved ones flashed into her mind. Kara, her mother, her father, J’onn. Maggie. 

_ No no nonono- _

_ Oh God, I’m about to die- _

~

_ I’m dead. _

“Sweetie, please, please don't leave us yet.”

_ Oh God, I’m dead. _

“...Alex, I’m so sorry. I should have been there. I shouldn’t have let you leave the DEO when you were so angry, I’m sorry...”

_ There’s nothing- _

“...I still imagine our wedding sometimes…”

It was faint, fuzzy, like underwater.

_ Maggie I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry- _

“...shaking so hard that I couldn’t have gotten the ring on…”

It wavered in and out.

_ I love you, I love you so much. Still. Always.  _

_ Forever. _

Fading away, she faced it; forever. 

~

Blinding lights, but no horn blast. 

She tried again, groaning softly at how overpowering the lights were. There was a throbbing, it started as a slow pulse but spread like a thick fog.  

“Alex?”

Her name trickled into her mind one letter at a time and away again. 

“You’re in National City General Hospital.”

Hospital. 

The throbbing separated, taking on different rhythms and strengths. And there were sounds now; a whoosh, a beep, a hum.

“Hey,” a voice whispered above, encouraging. “Alex?”

And now she had a body, one which was in pain. There was something jammed down her throat, and all of that throbbing escalated to thumping. She peeled open her eyes, forcing herself to look at the light until she adjusted.

Fluorescent lights and a familiar sterile atmosphere confirmed what the voice had said. A question arose-  _ What the hell happened to me? - _ and fell, lost again. She pieced together things one at a time as her eyes slid away from the lights. The whoosh; an oxygen machine. The beep; a heart monitor. The hum-  

“Welcome back. It’s a little after 4am,” the voice said. A woman appeared in her line of vision. “My name is Grace.”

Focusing through the blur of what she now suspected was morphine, Alex drank in as much as she could. She was in a hospital, not the DEO. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t anything to do with her job, or a mission. And what was jammed down her throat were trachael-

She couldn’t help it, she started to choke, her heart rate accelerating on the monitor.  _ She was in hospital, badly hurt- _

“Relax, okay honey? You were in a very serious collision.” Grace hovered at her bedside, pressing a button on a console by the bed. Almost immediately, Alex was flooded with relief. “You’ve been out for 3 days. Your mom and sister are here.”

Her eyelids were dipping, that blanket of sleep calling to her again. She fought it a little longer. Grace patted her hand. 

“Don’t worry honey. Go back to sleep, and I’ll go get your family.”

The second time she woke up, Kara and Eliza were in two chairs, sleeping on either side of her. It looked like morning outside, the sun was shining through the window, and Alex wondered how long she had slept for.

The third time, Eliza and J’onn were talking softly at the end of her bed. She thought her mother might have been crying. Fragments of memories locked together. She remembered fighting with Kara, and before that, in the hot lab. Sitting in her office chair, thinking about Maggie;  _ What had she been working on? _

She counted the stains on the roofing tiles of her hospital room, trying to wiggle her fingers and toes, until she was dragged back under.

Later, the fourth time she came to, the tubes were finally out of her throat.

“Mom,” Alex managed, her throat scraped raw, seeing Eliza’s head shoot up.

“Alex,” she breathed, “Oh, my darling girl.”

Her mother helped put her bed up a little, and cradled her neck as she drank some of the stale water from a jug on the tray beside her. 

“I’m not dead?” she croaked sarcastically, her lips dry and body feeling pasty.

“No sweetie, no,” Eliza whispered, reaching out to brush her knuckles over her daughter’s cheek. “But you scared us there for a moment.”

A figure hung back in the doorway, only coming into the room when Alex said her name; “Kara.”

She was timid at the end of the bed. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she confessed.

Alex lifted her fingertips and waved them languidly. Kara shuffled to the side of the bed, and gingerly touched them with her own. Her shirt was wrinkled, hair falling out of her ponytail. She was more dishevelled and fatigued than Alex ever remembered her being. 

“I’m so glad you’re alright,” Kara said thickly.

They didn’t hold hands, just touched fingertips, Kara afraid of her super strength against Alex’s fragile state. She stayed there as the doctor came on his rounds to check her chart. Alex hoarsely requested that he leave the explanation and prognosis of her condition until after he finished his rounds, so he could explain it properly, doctor to doctor. He agreed with a nod.   

Throughout the interaction, Kara applied some pressure to their fingertips, just enough to let Alex know that she was still there. 

Every time, Alex pushed back. 

~

Motorcycle accident. 

She asked to see the CCTV footage from the bodega on the corner, outright demanding, even when they all refused. Finally, she swayed Winn, who came into her DEO recovery room with a tablet as she sat quietly in a wheelchair, watching herself being thrown from the bike. There was only picture, no sound, but she could imagine what it had been like, metal and bones crushed in equal measure. 

“My Ducati?” 

“Never gonna dance again,” Winn said sadly. “I’m sorry, Alex.”

She let the tablet go dark, and in its dark reflective surface, saw her own sunken features like a hellish, skeletal apparition. She quickly handed it back to him, and then wheeled her chair over to the window. 

The days were lonely and frustrating, people she has yelled orders at a thousand times now treated her with the most tender touch, and could barely look at her without pity. 

She glared out at National City, swinging between blips of anger, and the sinking feeling of numbness. Her medication was wearing off, the flames of pain licking at her bones, but she refused to move for them just yet.

“You know, I used to hate December when I was a kid,” Winn said behind her. “My father was working overtime in the run up to Christmas, and I missed him in the house. And it was dark all the time and I, well…” He stalled, and when she didn’t speak, continued. “I used to look out at how dark it was at, like, 4pm and think it would never be summer again.”

Alex didn’t say anything back, leaning her forehead against the cool glass. Evening had sucked the light out of National City, only the blue dusk remaining. 

“December sucked in foster homes, too. Not sure if you can guess why…” 

“It isn’t December anymore, Winn,” she said flatly, breath fanning out against the glass.

“E-Exactly. Not today, or tomorrow.” She heard him shuffle his feet. “And one day, it won't be December for you anymore either.”

She stuck her wrists into the spokes of the chair, trapping them there. “I’m failing to see this analogy. December comes every single year.”

“Well, no one can help that,” he said. “That’s just what it’s like to be human. You just have to wait for summer to come around again.”

Alex looked out at the shadowy figures of the skyscrapers, unable to see the maze of streets from this far up, and wondered if Maggie was somewhere in them, if she was safe. 

_ She must have heard what happened _ , Alex seethed, vitriol seeping into her bloodstream.  _ Either she didn’t, or she did and they won’t let her get in touch. Or...she doesn’t care.  _

In each of the skyscrapers, she saw dots of people moving round, working after dark. She took her hands from the spokes of the chair and balled them into tight fists on her thighs, hearing Winn leave and shut the door behind him. 

Eventually, the frustration grew too much and she slammed them against the arms of the wheelchair, before collapsing forward against her own knees, shedding tears that tasted like loss.

~

Fighting to get strong again was not as inspirational as people in movies made it out to be.

There was no progress montage, only days of agony and humiliation. She gripped the steel bars on either side of her, arms trembling with exertion to hold her up every morning and afternoon until eventually, determination let her make some headway. 

By the second week on her feet, she was gaining a few steps each session. By the end of the third, she was strong enough for crutches, albeit not for very long and always with some support on hand. DEO medical staff provided all her care, including an operation that she had agreed to on the basis that she believed it would stabilise and speed up her recovery.

It was due to a slip up by Winn that she found out the full details of said operation. While she had read enough of the data to know it had been successful, it was through him that she learned it had been developed by Cadmus. Had she known the full truth of the structures they placed inside her, she would not have gone forward with the treatment. 

Perhaps, Winn gently reasoned, that was the point.

At the start of the fourth week, she insisted that she was allowed home. J’onn was wary, but Alex’s low mood had clearly permeated his own, and he was happy to allow anything if it would improve her psychological well-being. Besides, her main caretaker was Supergirl. What could go wrong? 

She had been chasing a ghost before the crash, and it hit her suddenly as she was helped back into her apartment that the search should continue now that she was healing. There were printed NCPD reports left on her kitchen island, which only hammered home the fact that the world had kept turning outside of the past few weeks; and that Maggie was still missing. 

On the fourth night back, she complained to Kara about the state of programming on television, straying away from both the revelation about Cadmus and her anxiousness to get back to the search for Maggie. She was sitting on her couch, trying to take her weight off the metallic splints in her hips, when it happened;

A note whispered through the bottom of the door. 

“What the hell?” she said, reaching for her crutches. 

Kara made a noise of protest but Alex ignored her, struggling to her feet and balancing properly before making her way over to the door. Kara followed her tentatively, stooping down to take the paper off the floor and hand it over. 

The handwriting that she had found on countless notes and reports, the  _ I got called out, don’t wait up _ or  _ Last night was amazing, call me later _ or the scribbles on NCPD documents; the flow and form that had signed everything from a cheque for the jewellers to the card she received for their engagement was right there on a torn piece of paper no bigger than the palm of her hand.  __

_ I’m okay, M. _

Fumbling with her crutches, Alex flung the door open, hobbling out and searching around. The hallway outside her apartment was empty. The paper wrinkled in her tight grip, and she read the scrawl over and over.

“Kara, this is her handwriting!” she said, excitement, wonder, relief and confusion choking up her throat. 

“Alex, that’s great news!”

Her shoulders stiffened. That preppy tone that Kara used when she was trying to go along with something false was soaking through, and she slowly raised her gaze from the note. Kara was staring at something over her shoulder, avoiding her eye.

Under Alex’s steely glare, Kara’s face fell, unable to hold up the facade as she turned her attention back to her. Quietly, she urged, “Please, come inside.”

Gripping her crutches, Alex didn’t move a muscle. And Kara worried her bottom lip for a second or two before quietly saying, “There’s something I’ve been keeping from you. Please,  _ please _ don’t get mad.”

“Kara.”

“Please, let’s go inside.”

She allowed Kara to help her back into the apartment, but shrugged her off and made her own way to the couch. She dropped down onto it, not even grimacing at the shockwaves of pain radiating from her hips and legs. She focused hard eyes on her fidgeting sister.

“Spill it.”

Kara held up her hands defensively. “Before you get all Agent Danvers on me, I can only tell you what I know, which isn’t even that much-”

“Kara,” Alex growled. “What do you know?”

Kara glanced at the door once, twice and then; “I may have, um, encountered Maggie recently.”

She flinched as Alex threw a clutch to the ground. It banged on the hardwood floor. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Alex, listen-”

“I thought she could have been hurt, or turned,  _ Kara,” _ she hissed. “And suddenly you’ve  _ seen _ her? Where? When?”

“Alex, she’s really deep undercover. And I didn’t wanna tell you because I knew you’d react like this!” Kara argued, nodding at her. “I know, I  _ know _ you want to call the DEO and get working on this but just- leave it alone.”

She settled back a notch at Kara’s tone, looking at the crutch on the ground. She tapped her fingertips on her knee, cycling through dozens of questions, and then gave a little leeway; “How deep?”

Kara laced her fingers together in front of her. “I think...maybe we could get her killed if we interfere. She implied that we really can’t compromise her. I think, whatever it is, it’s dangerous.”

Like the swing of a pendulum, Alex’s mood receded. She rubbed at the base of her throat, thinking of when she woke up with the tubes choking her, thinking of Maggie in the same position. 

_ Not like she even came to see me- _

But maybe, Alex realised, she wasn’t in a position to. All those soured emotions, where she wanted to rally against Maggie, hate the very thought of her for being so callous for disappearing without a word of warning, vanished one by one at this revelation. 

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Alex asked, lifting the remote to mute the TV.

Kara shrunk into herself at the sudden silence. “You almost died, do you know what that was like? Having my sister almost killed coming off her bike?” She walked in a slow circle, playing with the watch on her wrist. “I’ve never worried about you on the road, Alex. It’s never even entered my mind. But that? Seeing you in that hospital bed…”

Kara bent down to pick up the crutch, and sheepishly handed it back to Alex, who propped it against the couch again. She patted at the space beside her, and Kara perched on the edge of the cushion. 

“I’m sorry if I had more on my mind that wiggling my way into Maggie’s professional life,” Kara said. “I almost lost my sister. Running into Maggie was a surprise, but I think we have to respect her work. Knowing that she’s still one of the good guys is enough for me.”

Alex nodded, reaching out to smooth her thumb along the back of Kara’s hand. 

“Well, I guess it’ll just have to be enough for me too.”

~

According to her sister, once the pain medication started to kick in, Alex would apologise profusely again and again. Kara could never ascertain what exactly she was apologising for, or who she was supposed to be apologising to. 

Physio was cut from everyday to every other day, and Alex realised that if she took it easy, she could limp without crutches for a few hours in the afternoon. Despite her protest about sick leave, J’onn kept her on the payroll the whole time. 

It was in the midst of that particular disagreement that her attorney called, giving her an update on the man who was going to go down for reckless driving. 

“You know, I find this so ironic,” Alex muttered, limping towards the coffee maker. “Like bad karma. All of these years, I’ve thought about how good it was for me that you found me in that cell. I cleaned my act up, got given a purpose, set on the right track again. But what about the people I could have hurt that night? I was so selfish.”

J’onn hummed, crossing his arms over his chest, about to say something when Alex’s phone vibrated on her kitchen island. She huffed in impatience when she saw the caller ID. The conversation was terse, Alex adamantly refusing to push further than she thought was necessary and agreeing with any lesser proposals.   

She ended the call and threw her phone back onto the island, causing J’onn to raise an eyebrow in question. 

“I’m not going to any trial. I told her to settle, or make a deal or something,” she said, hobbling back over to the coffee maker. 

“And your attorney is advising you otherwise?” he asked, sorting through some of the paperwork on the island that Dr Hamilton had sent her home with. She glanced at him, rifling until he found the brochure-like leaflet that informed of the operation that had set about correcting some of the damage to her lower spine and hips.

“She says that I should push for something harder, since he nearly killed me.” She shuddered, remembering those hazy days in hospital as the doctor told her exactly how close she came. “Anyway, I keep telling her to get what she can, money doesn’t matter to me. I just want to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else again.”

“Why don’t you want a trial?” he inquired. Curiosity was such a rare sight with J’onn, but she saw it there in his features. “I thought you of all people would be eager to face someone who hurt you, and see that someone brought to justice.”

She stared at the mugs in front of her, one black and one white. With a sigh, she turned and shifted back to face him.

“It’s because…” She hunched her shoulders, watching the comprehension on his face when he got it from her mind before she even spoke again. “Because I don’t want to listen to them refer to me as a victim over and over again.”

He focused sad eyes on her, not in a pitying way, but in a fatherly way. He didn’t have to say it, but it was clear he understood where she was coming from. 

Each morning she would stare at herself in the mirror, see her pale, gaunt features, see how her ribs strained against her skin, how she had lost muscle on her thighs and biceps. While the worst of the bruising had long since faded from her skin, the molted yellows had lingered, even if only in her imagination. The post operation scars snaked in angry lines across her skin, but it was those that curled around her hip bones that caused her the most anguish. 

Knowing now what she did about the operation, she would stare at those scars every morning and weigh up the statistics again. Was it worth going under the knife if it meant she could eventually return to full fitness? Were those enhanced supports to her joints and bones, those products of early trials by Cadmus, worth the suffering that innocent lives had endured? 

In front of the mirror each morning, running her hands over the basket of her hips and ribs, she wondered about the extent of those trials, what pain had been caused to innocents so that she may walk, run, fight again.

“I just can’t,” she finished simply, unconsciously rubbing low on her stomach over her shirt. 

“You were fortunate that you work for this organisation, if you don’t mind me saying,” J’onn said. “You may well return to full fitness again, due to the operation-”

“I know,” she said brusquely. “Dr Hamilton explained it all to me before the operation. What she didn’t mention was that all of the trials had been researched and carried out by Cadmus, before they went rogue.  _ That _ I had to find out myself.” 

J’onn closed the pamphlet and set it back on the counter. “Project Cadmus had unorthodox methods, but it did garner some results. Given your injuries, the gradual recovery of almost all of your mobility is accredited to those very results.”

She didn’t want to fight with him, sure that he could already see the conflict in her own mind. So she set about pouring them two cups of coffee instead. 

“Trial or no trial, just call me Agent Metallo-hips.” 

~

Everything that Dr Hamilton cleared her for felt like another milestone, even when she was insisting she could push herself more. First it was going all day without crutches, then it was light exercise, then it was jogging and easy weights.

Alex hopped off of the treadmill, breathing in great gasping breaths but grinning all the while. 

“Well?”

“You’ve been very impatient, despite my constant labouring that you had to give your body time to heal,” Dr Hamilton said, eyeing her in amusement. “Doctors are the worst patients, I know, but you’re just too much, Agent Danvers.”

Alex leaned against the treadmill, reaching for her water bottle. “I’m not an agent yet until I get reinstated.”

“Okay  _ Alex _ .” Dr Hamilton scribbled on a clipboard, always preferring hard copy paperwork. “You understand that the recovery you’ve had in the DEO is extraordinary, given the nature of your injuries.” 

Taking a long swig of water and then capping the top again, Alex swiped her mouth and grimaced. “I also understand that it’s a result of Cadmus' findings.”

Dr Hamilton’s pen paused on the clipboard. “Unsavoury as the origins of the treatment are, Alex, these enhancements mean that you will be able to run and fight with minimal pain.” She clicked the pen, fixing a steady, unapologetic gaze on Alex. “You can return the field in the near future, if you wish. After a crash like that, with the injuries you sustained, that should not have been possible.” 

_ The ends justify the means _ , Alex mused, watching Dr Hamilton continue down the chart. 

“You’re cleared to begin training at the gym.” The doctor signed at the bottom of the form with a flourish, and handed the clipboard to Alex to sign as well. 

That first time back in the gym was tough, starting from scratch. But that night, she fell into bed, weary and exhausted, and smiled lazily at the ache in all of her muscles after months of recovery, finally feeling  something akin to accomplishment. 

And then, when the time came to retrain with J’onn, she leapt at every obstacle, fought with more fire, more determination that she ever thought she had in her. But she also found that he had erected an emotional barrier between them. 

Slinging a towel around her shoulders and straying over to where he was tallying her stats, she asked. “What are you keeping from me?” 

He hesitated, as if he was going to refute that statement, but shook his head. She sighed, inching closer. “Look, I’m not psychic like you are, so I’m gonna need you to communicate with me verbally, okay?”

His jaw clenched, and he stared at the tablet as he confessed; “After these past few months...seeing you train now…” He shook his head again. “I’m ashamed of myself.” 

She toweled at the back of her neck. “What, why?”

He turned from the screen, his eyes on a fixed point past her shoulder rather than her. “I couldn’t stand to be in the hospital when you were in a coma. I was too weak.”

She blinked in surprise. “J’onn?”

“I tried to reach out to you, reach into your mind, but you were blanketed by all of the morphine. I-well-” He heaved a breath, bracing his hands on his hips. “I panicked. I thought that I couldn’t hear you because you were already gone.”

She swallowed. “Oh, J’onn.”

At last, he looked at her, his eyes dancing with sorrow. “You almost were, Alex.”

She put a hand on his bicep. “But I’m here.”

“You are.” The results beeped onto the display panel, and he smiled. “You’re ready for field work.”

She smirked, twisting the towel in her fists. 

“Agent Danvers is back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought :) come chat with me on twitter or tumblr if you fancy: @santonaranja


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last dance around before Alex goes off on her own journey...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone's enjoying this so far.

Adjusting to the world with a new appreciation, Alex was back on her feet, both figuratively and literally. 

Ever since she was reinstated, she noticed strange occurrences when it came to cases. It wasn’t entirely unexpected; during her recovery she had insisted on being up to date with work. The NCPD had gradually shut out the DEO, until there was virtually no unofficial communication between the agencies. Maggie magically reappeared at work, according to the information that Winn had tracked, with no official documented reason for her disappearance.  

Back in the saddle, Alex more than once requested to speak to her, or at least a representative of the Science Division, but it was Kara and J’onn who talked her down every time. 

Her sister had a gut feeling that whatever Maggie was doing without her superior’s knowledge, it wasn’t quite over, and it was perilous to try and wade in on it. While Alex fumed at being shut out, she agreed to stay out of it every time. 

She couldn’t think about it too long, or she got too mad, or too sad, or too confused. She wanted answers, but felt useless in a search for them. 

Until about a year and some spare change after her accident, on a day she had off, Winn called her at 8am sharp.

_ “Alex, turn on the news.” _

She grumbled, holding the phone flat against her cheek. “What?”

_ “Turn on the news.” _

She scrubbed her face with her other hand, rolling onto her back. “It’s my day off.”

_ “Turn it on now, Danvers.” _

Her eyes opened at the firm tone. Winn never dared give her orders.

Throwing off the covers and ramming her feet into slippers, she made her way over to the couch. She clicked on the remote, and flicked to the most convenient news channel.

She air was sucked out of her lungs. It had been over a year, but that face was emblazoned on Alex’s eyelids every night; the face that was now on her television screen.

_ “Are you watching?” _

“Yes,” she breathed reading the banner. 

_ Breaking News: Operation Turncoat Weeds Out Police Corruption _

“Oh my god.”

_ “Right? Right?!” _

“Winn, I’m gonna have to call you back,” she said, hanging up and thumbing the volume up on the TV. 

Alex sank backwards onto her couch, seeing the four detectives, but only having eyes for Maggie. They were paraded in front of the camera, donned in NCPD windbreakers. The Mayor beamed at them as the Chief of Police stepped up to the podium. 

He gave a rousing speech to the crowd, waxing poetic about the four detectives behind him and the joint operation with the FBI. Every time the cameras cut to the detectives, Alex zeroed in on that bashful, half-smile that Maggie gave when she was being given a compliment that she didn’t think she deserved.

Seeing Maggie’s name scrolling across the ticker, Alex could have floated right off her couch. Each new piece of information fit the puzzles together in her mind.  

She registered a whoosh and boots landing behind her, but she couldn’t tear her eyes off the screen.

“Did you see the news?” she asked, pitched higher than she expected.

“Of course, I work at Catco,” Kara replied, rounding the couch. She took a seat beside Alex, sighing, “Thank Rao.”

Alex threaded a hand into her scalp. “I can’t believe I thought...”

Kara shook her head. “Alex, it’s okay. She didn’t give me any details about her undercover work. It was...a brief interaction.”

The crowd watching the conference started a round of applause, and Alex almost clapped right along with them. She shifted her gaze to her phone, tempted by it. She wanted to call Maggie, or even text her, but what would she even say?

She admitted as much to her sister, and then backtracked; “I’m not sure I’m strong enough to do it. Last time I faced Maggie, it didn’t go well.”

Kara stood and walked to the mantel, palming something from underneath one of the picture frames. Maggie’s note had been gathering dust since the night it was delivered, the selfish part of Alex keeping it as a symbol of hope.  

“I’ve been given the exclusive. I convinced Snapper that my familiarity with Maggie might get more personal answers, so he gave me the other three interviews, too.” She flapped the note in the air. “How about something like this? You can sneak in when I’m interviewing her. It would guarantee you get in and out unseen.”

“That’s crazy,” Alex scoffed, patting the remote on her knee.

And that was exactly what happened. 

Once Kara had given the word, she slipped into the precinct. The hostility that she had met when she was here almost a year and a half previous had dulled, cops passing quietly and minding their own business. She made her way to Maggie’s desk without a fuss, intrigued by the shift in atmosphere. 

Turncoat, it seemed, had struck a chord. 

“I’m here to leave a message for Detective Sawyer,” she said, showing her false badge to the man at the desk beside Maggie’s, who grunted in acknowledgement. 

She folded it neatly, leaving it down on Maggie’s desk. She smoothed the crease one last time, and with a sad smile, left the bullpen. 

~

Operation Turncoat was a huge piece for Catco, and Snapper giving Kara the interviews put her under a lot of pressure. Fortunately, the Girl of Steel’s determination to do her best work worked a charm, and went over beautifully with the readers of the publication. 

Alex was proud of her little sister, but there was a more selfish reason that led to her reading the spread over and over again. Whoever had taken the photographs of the quartet in plain suits had captured them well. In white shirts and dark slacks, they were stunning. One particular member of the ensemble had her heart beating like she was a teenager combing through gossip magazines for posters of popstars.  

Kara bounced into her apartment one night, beaming when she saw that Alex was thumbing through the edition. 

“Did you read it?” she asked, dropping onto the couch beside Alex. 

“I did,” Alex replied, giving her a huge smile. “You did so well, Kara. I’m proud of you.”

The second time she was caught reading it, however, was a different story. She was sitting at her lab desk, ignoring the dings from her laptop indicating that her scan was complete. 

Kara trundled into the lab and stopped at the sight of Alex with Catco magazine spread open on the top of her desk. 

“You’re reading it again?” she asked, confused.

Despite knowing that her sister would pick up on her elevated heart rate, Alex tried to play it off as cool, closing the magazine and leaning back. 

“What, I can’t read Kara Danvers’ first career shaping article?” She pointed at her sister. “The first of many, I hope.”

But Kara wasn’t so easily fooled. “I’m sure you really care about what Detective McGuigan, Gonzalez and Fierstein had to say...” 

“Sure I do! Did you know Gonzalez was asked to transfer to Metropolis just after he agreed to be part of Turncoat?” She scrambled to remember anything else she had picked out from the other three accounts. “Oh, and Detective McGuigan just found out he’s a father!”

Kara crossed her arms over her chest. “I do know. I wrote the article.” 

Alex sighed and gave up the act, propping her head on her hand. “Fine. I was reading it because of Maggie.”

The superhero wandered over to the fumigation cupboard, peering inside with interest and tapping the glass as if the foaming residue inside were a museum exhibit.

“She wanted to know if you forgive her,” she said, not turning around.

Alex sat up straighter. “For what?”

Kara moved on to a shelf of commonly used chemical testers. She carefully picked up a vial of universal indicator, smiling fondly at it. “Remember when you dragged me to that first science fair, and to keep me occupied, you let me set up this tray with lots of different liquids in it?” She read the back of the small bottle, adding, “You won that year, right?”

“I made a pH rainbow with that stuff,” Alex remembered, nodding at the indicator, lips twitching up. “I only wanted to impress Vicky because she told me I deserved to win. Pretty ironic, right?” 

“I made a rainbow, too!” Kara defended, putting the bottle back on the shelf. 

“No,  _ you _ made a mess.” They laughed for a second, and then Alex lowered her head. She flipped through the magazine until it shut, and then flicked it again.  “So why did Maggie want to know if I forgive her?”

Kara came back over, playing with the edge of where her cape met her right shoulder. “For leaving you without telling you, I suppose.”

“There’s nothing to forgive.” Alex frowned, playing with a dogeared magazine corner. “I mean sure, for a while there I was frustrated, but I hope she doesn’t think I’m holding a grudge against her.”

Kara smiled, confiscating the magazine and turning to go. “I told her for you.”

~

Time passed, and all that marked it were missed opportunities. 

Without explanation, J’onn insisted on having her command more responsibility at the base. She went out into the field less, as he instructed her to take the driving seat more often. It occasionally left her with a heaviness in her stomach, like he was testing her capability, but she did as he asked, donning headsets and taking charge of larger scale operations from the DEO base.

Once, she overheard Demos and Vasquez joking about running into Maggie at a crime scene, and a childish jealousy pinched at her. Then, she ran into a spate of unrelated crimes that she could have sworn were not a coincidence, therefore wasting weeks chasing down pointless leads. 

Kara set her up with a few people from work and she dated some frequent patrons of the alien bar, (even dated a few aliens), but the break up with Maggie and situation around her crash had gauged a lump out of her so large, it was like all of her dates could see it. Even the more serious ones never lasted longer than a handful of weeks. 

It had been over three years since she had last spoken with Maggie when she turned up to a weaponry find with the Science Division already working the scene. Such distance brought confidence, and she thought that after such a passage, she had gathered the courage to face her. However, she found herself dealing with an entirely new detective, who shook her hand politely and introduced herself as Detective Ferrera. 

“Where is Detective Sawyer?” Alex asked, throwing subtlety away.

“Detective Sawyer transferred at the end of last week,” Ferrera explained, eyes on her phone. “She works regular Narcotics now, I think?”

On top of it all, Winn started dating her attorney-

_ “You and- what- why?” _

_ “She’s amazing, Alex. She’s stunning and she’s so smart.” _

_ “Please tell me that you hooked up before you started reviewing my x-rays for the settlement.” _

\- and told her that one day just before he picked his girlfriend up for lunch, he ran straight into Maggie. She was doing well, apparently. That was all he disclosed. She tried to maintain a poker face about it, but she was sure he could see the sorrow shrouding her body language. Apparently everyone was running into her ex except Alex.

It was with her luck, then, that she found out about Maggie’s promotion accidentally. 

James and Winn were at Kara’s for Game Night, something they had neglected for too long. Alex had told them she was going to be late. J’onn had loaded her desk with paperwork that afternoon, some of it she wasn’t sure she had the authority to sign off on. Speed-reading down some of the classified documents, she started to doubt his judgement, despite the years she had worked under him. 

Finishing the work earlier than planned, she took on the errand of retrieving the takeout and picked up the usual order from Stilton Pizza. 

As she approached Kara’s door, she heard the voices inside. 

“I was thinking of going as Supergirl,” Kara said.

“Just to steal the show?” James mused.

“Ha! Are you going or not?”

Alex inched the door open, seeing them on the couch. 

“I’m going,” James confirmed, and turned to Winn. “Are you?”

“Hell yes, I’m going!” Winn said. “She’s a badass. It’s been way too long.”

“And free food?” Kara piped up.

“And free food,” Winn sang, raising up his beer. “Who knew that we’d be arranging to go and see Sergeant Sawyer in all her glory?”

Kara must have caught Alex’s surprised gasp, because her head shot over to the doorway. “Alex,” she blurted, “We were just…”

Alex pushed into the apartment, closing the door and making her way to the island. They avoided her eye, saying nothing as she put the food on the island. Gathering her immediate reactions, she looked over at them, acting like school children caught doing something forbidden. 

“I didn’t realise you were still in contact…” Alex trailed off, opening the pizza box and pulling out the potstickers. 

“We aren’t,” Winn said quickly, glancing at Kara and James. “We’re kinda hoping to be, though. Olive branch, or something.”

She didn’t reply, nodding for them to come over. The trio looked sheepish as they approached the island, and she smiled at them despite the horrible, lonely feeling of being the only one not invited to an event. “Maggie’s getting promoted?” 

Kara nodded, reaching shyly for a potsticker. “We volunteered to cover the event for CatCo. Do you wanna come with us?”

Alex bit hard on her lower lip. “I’ll think about it.”

She didn’t go with them, but ended up there of her own accord. She tried to blend in with the crowd as much as possible while still getting a decent view of the stage. Winn caught her, but didn’t come over, choosing to tip his head in acknowledgement and leave her be.

“Hey, Alex right?”

She spun in surprise to see a woman beside her with lilac and blue hair. She didn’t recognise her. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“No.” The woman rocked forward on her toes, keeping her eyes on the stage. “But I know  _ you _ .”

Alarm seized Alex, who reached into the back of her waistband to wrap her fingers around her concealed weapon. 

The woman glanced at her. “Take it easy, trooper. I’m just here for Maggie.”

She watched as the stranger’s hair darkened from lilac to maroon, and then shifted up to a reddish colour, identical to her own. She stared, slack-jawed, as the woman grinned, still not looking at her directly. 

“If you keep staring at me, you’re gonna miss Maggie in her blues.”

On cue, applause rippled through the crowd. Alex reluctantly let go of her weapon in order to clap. The crowd built to a crescendo as the police who were to be honoured that day took to the stage. 

First, it was the rookies being introduced into the force, then the names of those promoted to a higher rank. Alex watched with pride as the Commissioner left Maggie til near the end, reading a longer speech that highlighted the merits she had received in her time with the NCPD, including during Operation Turncoat. 

She saw it all; Winn and James chatting merrily with Maggie, the three of them joking like there had never been any distance between them. She saw her sister make an appearance as Supergirl, congratulating Maggie publicly for her service. She saw that same stranger-  _ now with long blonde hair?-  _ hugging Maggie.

Alex froze-  _ girlfriend? _  She watched from afar as this stranger talked with James, flirted with him, while Maggie talked to another man-  _ Why is he familiar? _ \- and his-

Her breath hitched as Maggie kneeled down to talk to a small boy.

And that was her limit. That physical manifestation of the exact reason why Alex wasn’t openly hugging and congratulating Maggie-  _ who would have been her wife- _

She made a swift exit through the throng of uniformed bodies, catching a glimpse of Supergirl flying overhead. She ducked her chin against her chest, walking and walking until she couldn’t hear the crowds anymore. 

Would she ever be free of this? Would she ever not be in love with Maggie Sawyer?

By the time she got back to her apartment, she felt pathetic, running away like that. She wanted to congratulate Maggie, even if she couldn’t face her. She wanted Maggie to know that she admired her, that she was proud, if that would even mean anything to her. 

She bought a bottle of Maggie’s favourite scotch, writing a simple message onto a card and tying it to the top.

It was a new receptionist at the precinct, one that clearly didn’t recognise her, because she was greeted with a wide, friendly smile. 

“Hello, how can I help you?” she asked.

Alex raised an eyebrow.  _ Clearly, you’re very new to be this chipper in a precinct. _

“Just wanted to leave a gift for Sergeant Sawyer,” she explained.

“Oh, marvellous!” the woman cheered. “Just put it there and I’ll take it up later.”

Alex gingerly set the scotch on the reception desk, eyeing the cops around her. Then she fixed the card around the neck of the bottle, and with a satisfied warmth settling in her stomach, walked out of the station.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) Happy St Patrick's Day! Let me know what you think.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy :) Lemme know what y'all think.

She hadn’t intended to go out with them that night.

Karaoke bars and open mic events weren’t exactly her scene, but work was pulling teeth and Kara wanted to celebrate her promotion, so she relented. Despite her initial wariness, Alex found that she was enjoying the evening with her friends.

About four acts in, a woman with long, brunette hair took to the stage, cradling a guitar on stage. She played a song about the process of grieving, which Alex considered a touch macabre for the atmosphere of the bar, but any negativity dissipated with each chord strummed.

She tried to concentrate on the story Kara was telling, but the woman on stage captivated her. Every time the woman made eye contact with her, a long-forgotten flutter emerged in Alex’s stomach, sinking lower each time. When the song was over, the woman gave a smile at the applause, lingering on Alex for a second before climbing down off of the stage.

A few minutes later, a round of drinks came to the table. Winn looked up in surprise. “We didn’t order these.”

The waitress smiled, setting the drinks down. “No, but the last performer wanted to buy the table whatever they were drinking.” She looked at Alex specifically, winking. “I think you have an admirer.”

Alex peered around her, finding the singer at the bar, talking to another man. “Give her my thanks.”

“I think she may have asked for you name.”

This drew her attention back to the waitress. “Alex.”

The waitress smirked and left with a bob of her head. A young man took to the stage and sat anxiously behind an unsteady keyboard, almost knocking it to the ground with his first chord. Alex twisted back to her friends, who gaped at her.

“What?”

Half an hour passed, and then Alex went to the bathroom. Another act had just gotten up on stage who may have trying been his best, but wasn’t nearly as good as the previous performers. She washed her hands, praying that the song would end after each line, and groaning when it didn’t.

Then, someone entered the bathroom. She looked up to see the woman from before hitching her hip against the sink with a knowing smile.

“Alex, is it?”

Alex felt the flutter again, turning to dry her hands with some paper towels. “It is. Thanks for the drinks.” She bunched the towels up and threw them into the bin in the corner. “You sang beautifully, before.”

The woman chuckled, tapping the edge of the porcelain. Outside, the man sang an off-key chorus. “Yeah, well, it isn’t everyone’s kind of thing.”

“It was mine,” Alex said quietly, her cheeks heating up. Hands dry, she inched over, leaning her hip against the sink too. “Do I get your name?”

They winced at a particularly bad bum-note, and together, shared a grin.

“Do you want it?” the woman flirted, reaching out to push some of Alex’s hair behind her ear.

“Yeah.”

“In that case, it’s Rachael.”

They kissed then, giving in to the pull between them. It was soft, a promise of more if the desire was there. The man howled his way into the next verse, but neither of them noticed.

Eventually, Rachael eased away. “You should get back to your friends,” she said, flicking her gaze down to Alex’s lips. She took a weak step back as Alex’s fingers circled her wrist and pulled her back in, kissing her harder.

Rachael smiled against her lips, like that had been what she was after all along.

 

~

They go on four dates- _the third was interrupted by a Supergirl emergency-_ before they end up in Alex’s bed.

The journey there had one noticeable bump; Alex had pulled up Rachael’s shirt and stopped when she saw what was underneath, the shirt dangling in mid air from her hands.

Nipping through Rachael’s veins, just under the surface of her skin, were dozens of coloured lights. Reds, greens, blues, around her rib, over her shoulder, up her neck. Alex pressed her palm to the skin of Rachael’s stomach in awe.

“I’m a little different, I’ll admit.” Rachael reached for Alex’s hand, sliding it lower and nibbling on her jaw. “But I think you’ll find that when it comes to _this_ , we work the same way.”

It turned out that Cavurian bodies worked exactly like humans, in that way.

In the afterglow, Alex’s attention was drawn again to the lights pulsing underneath soft skin.

“You know I’m an alien right?”

“I do now,” Alex joked, pressing a kiss to her chest.

Rachael chuckled, playing with Alex’s hair. The agent purred, relaxing further against her. She always loved someone playing with her hair. It calmed her, those shivers down her spine, the warmth of a lover’s touch over her scalp.

“Where are you from?” Alex asked, watching in wonder as little blips of colour skirted under the skin.

“Trostmourn, on Cavura. And you?”

“Midvale, California.”

“Oh, I remember you mentioned that you were from a town up the coast.”

Alex grinned, tracing a purple light with her fingertip all the way up Rachael’s ribcage. “Is it true Cavurians can transfer some of those to humans?”

“...Yes...”

“What are they? What do they do?”

“Depends on the colour. I don’t think you have a comparable experience as humans.” She stilled her fingers in Alex’s hair. “I guess the closest explanation I can give you is that it draws out the pure emotions of certain memories.”

“Like extreme nostalgia?”

“I think so.” Rachael reached out and entwined their fingers together. “Want to find out?”

Alex regarded their interlocked fingers suspiciously, but didn’t pull away. Then she searched Rachael’s green eyes, which shimmered with humour and, underneath, a touch of self-consciousness. In the end, her curiosity won out.

“Okay,” she said.

Rachael kissed her slowly, murmuring, “Relax, human.”

And then Alex was yanked down a warp-hole-

The sweetness of dessert after a heavy meal, sinking into a bath after an exhausting day and feeling her muscles loosen, her favourite song playing on the radio on a breezy, Sunday afternoon drives, the first time Maggie settled between her thighs and brought her to orgasm with her mouth, riding along the side of a wave as she surfed feeling the breeze in her hair-

They let go of each other’s hands, and Alex was boomeranged back into her body.

“Oh god,” Alex said drowsily, watching a red light drift up from her own wrist to the crook of her elbow, before dropping her arm onto the bed altogether. “That was really something.”

“Yeah,” Rachael slurred, reaching over to entwine their hands again. “I heard it was good with humans.”

They shared tired, gravelly laughter before both succumbing to sleep.

 

~

After that, she learned more about her Cavurian lover.

Alex found that this thing Rachael had shared with her, whatever it was, could come in many forms. Most of the time, it was like a series of hallucinations, the emotions of memories more powerful than she remembered them being at the time.

She introduced Rachael as her girlfriend about a month into their relationship, bringing her to the celebratory dinner in honour of Kara’s first article following her promotion. To her relief, they all gelled, relaxing enough to continue to the bar for drinks after.

As Alex went up to get her round, Kara intercepted her on the way back from the bathroom, linking onto her by the elbow.

“I like her,” she said simply.

“Yeah?” Alex asked, glancing behind them at booth. Rachael and Winn were locked in an arm wrestle. She started at their clasped palms and realised with a pang of jealousy that her girlfriend could be sharing that... _experience_ with him too.

“What’s wrong?” Kara asked, catching her frown.

“Nothing, I just…” She shook it off. Rachael hadn’t described it as a private thing, or even a remotely romantic thing. But it had felt intimate every time.

The bar was busy, and before she was served, Winn popped up beside her.

“She’s fun!” he said, eyes wild. “And she’s so strong.”

Alex smiled, looking over at Rachael in the booth.

“Hold my spot?” she said. At his nod, she made her way back to the booth, snaking through the tables and slipping in opposite Rachael.

“Hey you,” Rachael said, rubbing her palms together. “James and J’onn are out getting some air. Do…” She hesitated, letting her long hair cover her face. “Do you think they like me?”

“I think they do,” Alex said, smiling. “I saw you and Winn were having fun.”

“Human males are so weak.” She looked Alex up and down flirtatiously. “Or perhaps you’re just very strong.”

Alex felt heat flood her cheeks, and tipped her head. “You two held hands-did- I mean…did you two…?” She waved her hands, hoping to indicate what it was she meant.

Rachael’s eyes widened. “You’re asking if I-” She let out a trill of a laugh, and grew embarrassed. “No, Alex. Cavurians only do that with their, uh, their mates. Partners. Lovers.” She shrugged, “Girlfriends.”

“Only with me?” Alex said, relief mushrooming in her stomach.

Rachael smiled softly, reaching over to brush from hair away from Alex’s temple. “Yes, only you,” she confirmed.

Each experience was distinct from the next; it could be sad, leaving her bone-weary afterwards. Or full of anger, like each memory was popping bubbles in her mind. Rachael gradually trained her so that the two of them could share the positives, since Alex was eager to explore how far she could push herself as a human. She got swept up in the possibilities; could she control the emotional direction? Could the radiation and resonance between them flourish and become more vivid, so that eventually they could _both_ see each others experience?

Rachael told her that she would try and project happy thoughts in the morning, so that if Alex wanted to initiate it, she could feed off that positivity for the day. And it worked, Alex practically bouncing into work. And sometimes, wrapped in the warm sheets and sharing slow kisses or lazy love making, this thing, whatever it was they shared, would encourage her to go places mentally and physically that she had never gone before.

Those times, she once shyly admitted, were her favourite.

 

~

There was an uptick, a new pace to her life. Everything was going swimmingly; she had a new girlfriend, she was conquering important cases, Kara was given more leeway at work, her mother was much less hard on her at Thanksgiving that year.

But all good things came to an end, and her reality check came in the form of Winn sticking his head in the door of her lab.

“Alex? J’onn wants you in the conference room up yonder.” He drummed at the doorway, pointed at her, and then left.

J’onn’s expression was a balance of serene and serious when she entered the conference room, and Alex drew a blank on guessing what it could be about.  

“Alex, please, sit down,” he said, moving to close to the door and shut out any eavesdropping agents outside.

“Okay,” she said, pulling her chair in to the table. She bounced her knees. “Is this about the Tarner sighting yesterday?

“It’s not about an open investigation.” He rounded the table. “It’s about me.”

Her knees stopped. “What?”

“M’gann got in contact a few days ago,” he announced, watching the passing agents on the decks outside. “She stole records detailing others like her who had helped Green Martians escape during the war, and where they were suspected of hiding.”

“Oh my God,” Alex breathed.

He turned his attention back to her. “You understand what this means, don’t you?”

“You aren’t the last.”

“No, I’m not.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I suspect that my brothers and sisters, wherever they may be, are shielding themselves.”

Alex nodded in understanding. “J’onn that’s big news.”

“It is.” He placed his hands on his hips, staring at the ground. “I’ve been thinking about this since M’gann contacted me. She asked me if I might consider undertaking a search, to bring the lost sons and daughters of Mars back together once more.”

“You’re thinking of leaving?”

He worried the toe of his boot into the smooth floor. “I’ve considered it, yes. But there are a lot of changes to be made if I am. Who will lead the DEO in my place? Who do I trust with the duty to protect the planet?”

Alex imagined the resumes of some of the names that Washington would shortlist for him. Four star generals with decades of service. They would be keen to have someone military back in command of the organisation. While it was J’onn’s ultimate decision, if they weren’t pleased with an inside hire, they would go above his head with a replacement.

Alex shuddered at the thought of having to work for some General Lane clone, with a gruff Southern accent, hard scowl and harder heart.

J’onn started around the table and automatically she stood up. He held out his hand, and she hesitated before shaking it.

“Congratulations, Agent Danvers. I’m appointing you as my successor.”

Her hand clamped around his, stalling the handshake in midair. “Wait, J’onn-”

“This isn’t news, Alex. You’ve known for a while that should something incapacitate me, you are my choice to step into the role of director.” He looked upon her with respect, but not without affection. “I think it’s time we made that official.”

“You’ve been testing me,” Alex realised, thinking about that stretch of time where she was rarely in the field. Thinking about the paperwork he had cleared her for.

Alex remembered the desert base, the swelling of surprise and duty in her chest when the screen unveiled her name as acting director. But that had been an emergency. This was a planned- if partial- resignation.

“Are you sure this is the right choice?” she asked.

“If you can stand doing more office work and commanding than actively giving orders on missions, then of course you’re the right choice, Alex.” He smiled, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Do you accept?”

Working in a daze afterwards, Alex let everything except the basic details of the Tarner case slip from her mind. Could she handle all of this responsibility? Make the tough decisions like J’onn had had to for years? Face the bureaucrats and levy their agenda against Washington’s scrutiny?

Later, she returned to her apartment to find her girlfriend sleeping on the couch, and it knocked her back into reality.

_Shit._

Rachael stirred at the click of the door closing. She sat up and fixed her hair over one shoulder, leaning her chin against the couch and watching Alex as she moved around the apartment.

“Hey, babe. You didn’t text me this afternoon.” She stretched her arms out in front of her, groaning. “Winn was texting me about this weekend, he said you could be snowed in with work. You guys working a big case at the minute?”

Alex walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge, smelling the leftovers from the dinner they’d made together the previous night, suddenly queasy. She closed the fridge door with a sigh. She heard Rachael get up and pad over to the other side of the counter. When she turned, intense green eyes pinned her to the spot.

“Alex, what’s wrong?”

“Rachael,” she started. “There’s something I’ve been lying about for a while now, since we met, actually.” She paused as her girlfriend’s shoulders dropped. She hadn’t prepared a speech for this, and wasn’t sure she could get it out if she had. “I just don’t know how to tell you.”

Rachael toyed with a bracelet on her wrist; a delicate blue and purple band that Alex had bought her for her birthday two weeks earlier.

“Oh,” she said faintly. “What’s her name?”

Alex’s jaw dropped, and then she pressed forward to the island, so she was opposite Rachael. “No, that isn’t it at all.”

The fingertips on the bracelet stilled. “But there is something bad. I can hear it in your voice.”

She had only had to come out as DEO to someone she cared about twice, once with Kara and once with her mother, and they were both mostly forgotten experiences, coming out as gay eclipsing them both. And Maggie, well, she had detected.

“I’m not a member of the FBI,” she said slowly, forcing herself to make eye contact. “I’m a member of the DEO.”

Rachael’s eyes darted to the front door, as if she expected Alex to announce she was bringing her in right now. “Oh my god.”

“There’s more.” Alex kept the island between them, hoping Rachael felt better with the space.  “As of this afternoon, I was offered the role of head of the organisation. It’ll go into effect some time next month.”

Rachael expressed anger, usually, in a slow-boiling way. It started with terse words and escalated. But now, straight off the bat, her eyes were filled with fire.

“Why the _fuck_ didn’t-”

“I haven’t been in a relationship like this in a long time,” Alex said. “I mean, I’ve dated sure but this, Rachael…”

_I could love you, and it terrifies me, that I could love again-_

“I know what they do at the DEO,” Rachael snapped. “They beat down doors of aliens, terrorise them, torture them. Doesn’t matter if they’re innocent or guilty. They’re aliens, right?”

Alex shook her head. “It wasn’t like that under my previous superior, and it won’t be like that under me. This organisation has a purpose, and a duty to protect the citizens of this city-”

“When I first came to Earth, I watched a DEO agent shoot a Zyrion bystander for looking at them the wrong way. And of course, no consequences, because who cares about a dead alien?” Rachael’s chest heaved, fingertips tight around the bracelet to the point where Alex expected it to snap. “Do you know what that was like? Being a young girl, new to this planet, and having my brother hide me in case they did the same thing to us?”

“That was a long time ago, Rachael. Hank Henshaw isn’t part of the DEO anymore, his agenda is no longer ours.” Alex could feel Rachael slipping through her fingers. “The DEO has changed a lot since then, even since the Amnesty Act. We aren’t operating as much in the dark anymore-”

“I was a kid! I watched a man die- listen to yourself, Alex!” Rachael cried, wheeling away from the island and burying her hands into her hair. “I need...I need to go.”

Alex’s jaw snapped shut, and she gripped the island so that it bit at her palms.

“I’ll call you,” Rachael muttered, grabbing her jacket and storming out the door.

But she didn’t call, not that night, nor the next. When Alex tried to call, she declined it, or let it go to voicemail. It was like that for two weeks, the change coming as Alex prepared to start as head of the DEO. An agent poked his head around the door to the lab, where she was finishing up her final reports as an active field agent.

“Ma’am? There’s a woman here to see you, says she’s called Rachael but her uh…” He adjusted the tablet in his arms. “Her entry scans are reading as-”

“Cavurian.” Alex stood up. “It’s okay, let her in. She’s with me.”

Rachael’s eyes roamed around the place as soon as she stepped foot in the door. She took in the machines, the paperwork, the other technicians through the glass.

“So, this is where you work, huh?”

“Yes.”

Her girlfriend’s gaze slid to her. Even as an expert in body language, Alex found her expression unreadable. “And you’re the boss now.”

She capped her pen, laying it down on the reports. “Yeah, I guess you could put it that way.”

Rachael nodded, swallowing. She picked up a pipette, squeezing the end. “I tried to walk away. Cut you out cold turkey and ignore all the pain inside.” She squeezed again, keeping her fingertips pinched together, looking at the clear plastic tube instead of Alex. “But I can’t do that.”

She put the pipette down and still Alex waited, letting her speak. “You have a part of me, literally, and I can’t tear myself from you.”

“I don’t want you to, Rachael.” Alex rounded the desk, but came no closer with Rachael shrunk back. Her chest tightened, but she struggled through. “I lied to you, and I’m sorry. I knew we were getting into something deeper, that I felt something deeper than I have in…”

She shrugged, thinking about that first night they met. “But it’s been a busy time recently, and I just didn’t know how to tell you. I had this fear that you’d have stories like the one you...”

She locked her hands in front of her, wondering how she would be able to continue J’onn’s work of scrubbing Hank Henshaw’s dirty marks away from the DEO’s reputation. If she could make it a trusted organisation, perhaps more alien intelligence would aid them in rooting out the evil. Maggie had been the one to bring her around to the idea of a shared future on Earth, all generations living and working in harmony.

Rachael spun an instrument on the desk, watching its circles. “Why now?”

“When J’onn announced he was taking a break, and I was being promoted, I knew that things would change here, and I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.” Alex followed a hazy yellow light flirting along the collar of Rachael’s white blouse. “And I don’t. I really don’t. So if there’s anything else you wanna know, I’ll answer honestly. Even if you don’t want...”

 _To be with me anymore._ She couldn’t bring herself to say it, but the meaning hung in the air anyway.

“Does Kara know?”

“Kara knows, yes.”

A pause, then; “Kara is Supergirl, isn’t she?”

 _Honesty._ Alex closed her eyes. “How did you know?”

Rachael tipped the instrument again with her fingertip. “I can’t tell you that.”

She opened them. “What-?”

“I don’t trust you,” Rachael cut in. She lifted her finger from the instrument, finally looking straight at Alex. “Yet.”

“Yet?” Alex repeated hopefully.

Rachael huffed and came closer, bumping a knee with her own. “It’ll take some time to get used to, especially now I know that Winn also works here." She rolled her eyes, and quietened her voice. "But I want to try and build something with you.”

Alex nodded, holding out her hands, palm up. After a second of hesitation, Rachael took them, lacing their fingers through each other. She pressed their foreheads together.

“It’s been a long two weeks.”

“It has.” Alex breathed her in, feeling something slot back into place in her heart where a hole had been. “I’ve missed you.”

"You too." A beat. "You're committed to changing the way this organisation operates?"

"Absolutely. There are things we should discuss. But, not now?"

Rachael reached up and gently pressed her palm to Alex’s cheek. "No, not now."

And with a shudder- it was pride, acceptance. Alex was 10 years old, watching a cake raising in the oven for her birthday. She was 12, her mother and father beaming at her for winning an end of year math competition. She was 18, holding her Stanford acceptance letter. She was 24, J’onn shaking her hand, telling her that she passed her tests with flying colours, an official agent of the DEO.

Coming back to herself, Alex watched that yellow light dancing once again along Rachael’s collar before it dimmed and reappeared on the back of her own hand.

Rachael ducked her head, meeting Alex’s lips in a tender kiss. Neither pushed for more before they melted into each other’s arms, hugging as tightly as they could.

“Wait.”

“What?” Rachael mumbled, nuzzling into Alex’s shoulder.

“What do you mean I _literally_ have a part of you?”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What did Rachael mean...  
> Come chat @santonaranja


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // for a little blood and violence, I suppose.

It wasn’t easy to get past the trust issues, but they worked on it each day. Once Rachael was comfortable in the DEO-  _ Winn helped a lot with that- _ it was a smooth ride.

As director, Alex rarely went into the field as often as she used to, but the mission to scoop the Vertillians was special. She had tracked their movements when she was a junior agent, and through a rookie mistake, they had slipped through the net. Now, she had them back in her crosshairs, and she didn’t intend to let them away so easily.

It was the same group that had evaded her those years ago, and somehow it felt personal.

As the van rolled to a stop, the team was gathered round her, leaning in eagerly.

“These are rogue aliens, but they are not high threat code,” she explained, refreshing them on details she had given during a briefing that afternoon. “They’re quick, so a swift extraction is the paramount objective here. If you’re fired at, you may return fire, but they’re also masquerading as human, so be careful. This is not shoot to kill, understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” they chanted.

“Alright, let’s go to work,” she said, throwing open the back of the van.

They did come under fire, but the Vertillians were mostly pinned down in the street. One of them took a fatal DEO bullet to the chest, falling to the ground and transforming from the human cover to the huge, maroon, slug-like creatures that they were.

Two escaped into a back alley. She tapped an agent on the shoulder.

“After me,” she shouted, before taking off after them.

Unfortunately, the alleys were a maze. Alex chased the pounding feet around multiple corners, plunging further into the darkness as they got away from the main street. She heard rapid gunfire erupt behind her, and doubled back in that direction. She skidded around a corner, finding Agent Benston with his weapon still aimed as two bodies fell to the ground.

Alex waited for the bodies to turn into the slug-like creatures, but they didn’t. She lowered her rifle, dread rising up in her throat.

“Oh shit.” She ran to the pair, the woman gone already with a shot to the head, the man shuddering and choking. She turned and held up her hands. “Stand down! Get me a medic.”

Agent Benston lowered his gun and stood back in shock. “I thought-I thought they were-”

“Get a medic, now!” she barked.

He took off, and she took the man’s pulse before pressing down on his bleeding chest.

“Sir, please stay calm,” she implored.

“Jenny,” he gasped, blood pooling in his mouth, coating his teeth and tongue. “Jenny.”

“You’re gonna be alright,” she lied.

His hand scrambled towards the dead woman beside him, and Alex put more pressure on his wound. He let out a whine, and she wasn’t sure if it was because his wife was dead beside him, or from the pain of being shot.

After a few more gasping cries, his breath stuttered, rattled, and his head lolled.

“Sir? Can you hear me?” She pushed her fingertips into his neck, and the thready pulse she had felt before was gone. “God fucking-”

Mewling sounds came from the dumpster, and when she looked up, the trash bags were rustling beside it. Alex gripped her rifle, aiming as she stood up and closed in. When she saw what was making the noise, she froze.

A little girl cowered amongst the trash bags, eyes wide open and petrified. They bounced between the pair on the ground and Alex, who shifted closer.

“Hey there, what’s your name?” She threw her weapon back over her shoulder and knelt down on one knee.

The tiny girl whimpered, curling away from her. Struck suddenly by the memory of Kara at 13, hugging her knees and huddling away from the popcorn maker underneath the kitchen table, Alex made a choice. She got right in amongst the trash to sit down beside her, wiping her bloody hands against her thighs as well as she could.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said soothingly. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay?”

The girl’s breath caught before she burst into distressed tears. Alex coaxed her into her arms, hiding the girl’s face in her shoulder and gently rubbing her back. She looked over at the two lifeless bodies lying mere feet away.

“You’re gonna be okay,” she said, hoping that this time, she meant it.

~

She sat in the front of the van, the little girl curled on her lap, shivering.

Agents had said nothing as she carried the girl out of the maze of alleys back onto the main street, pausing in their clear-up to watch her return to the van. One agent had wordlessly followed, climbing behind the driver’s seat and switching on the engine.

Just before they set off, she leaned over and said, “Get Benston.”

As soon as he was in the van with them, they set off. National City’s lights slid past the window, passing over the innocent, terrified face that gazed up at her every so often, as if expecting her to speak or do something.

The girl couldn’t be older than three years old, Alex deduced. A million things whirred in her mind. Her first instinct was to ask J’onn what she should do, too late remembering that she was the one calling the shots. She had to call Washington, she had to identify the two humans who were killed, bring them here and do an internal investigation. She would have to discipline Benston, and stage a cover up-

She carried the shaking toddler into the DEO on her hip, growling at Benston as she passed. “Go to my office. I’ll deal with you, later.”

Winn jogged over over to her, taking in the sight of the girl and adapting immediately. “And who do we have here?” he asked airily.

“I’m not sure,” Alex said, injecting some false enthusiasm into her voice and looking down at the trembling girl. “Who do we have here?”

The girl shrank away from their attention, her little fists gripping Alex’s tactical vest. She sighed, addressing Winn again. “Call Kara. Tell her it’s an emergency, and that I’m asking for her.”

He nodded and turned on his heel, pulling out his phone.

Alex carried the whimpering toddler down into the depths of the DEO, into JD-Room 7. It was specialised to deal with aliens who had been victims, rather than aggressors. Three of its walls were padded, as was the ceiling, but the wall opposite the door was a huge screen. There were beanbag-like cushions on the floor and she carried the girl over to one, gently setting her down.

When she straightened to walk away, the girl’s hands shot up to grip her sleeve, tugging as tears began to well up in her eyes. Alex climbed over the cushion to the one beside her, and sank down. She found a white tablet beneath her and turned it on. After a triad of bleeps, the screen in front of them purred to life, raising from black to white as the lights of the room dimmed.

Alex glanced at the girl who was staring at the screen like a fawn in headlights, and then used the tablet to scroll through options on the screen. She settled on an aquarium, and all of a sudden, the screen appeared to be the glass of an exhibit. Entranced, the little girl watched as dozens of coloured fish swam into sight.

After a few minutes, she heard the door open and quietly shut behind them. Gingerly, keeping her eyes on the little girl whose face was splashed with colour, Alex stood up and circled back to speak to Kara.

“Hey,” she whispered.

Kara glanced at the girl and then settled concerned eyes on her sister. “What happened?”

“Her parents were killed in a mission tonight. Everything’s really, really bad, Kara. And I just-” She dug her hands into her hair, looking over her shoulder at the girl again. “She’s traumatised. I don’t think she wants to speak, if she even can. But I thought maybe she’ll recognise the crest.”

Kara nodded, jerking her head. “Sure, gimme ten seconds.”

As she slipped outside, Alex shuffled around to the girl and kneeled down. “Hey,” she said softly, wide eyes now back on her. “I have a visitor who wants to meet you.”

Sure enough, as the door opened again, the girl’s eyes lit up at the sight of Supergirl.

“Hello there,” Kara greeted, haunching down. “Who is this cute little thing?”

The girl didn’t answer, but she smiled broadly and pointed up at the screen. Kara’s features bloomed. “Oh, wow! Look at all those colours.” She shifted until she was sat cross legged beside the girl, and Alex stood with a sigh.

“Will you look after her while I deal with this mess?” she asked.

“Of course,” Kara said, reaching for the tablet Alex had put down, before addressing the little girl. “Shall we see what other pretty things we can put up?”

~

They had been at it for a solid twenty minutes, all of Alex’s ideas about protocol and professional practise flying out the window as anger boiled her blood. 

Benston stood with his hands clasped behind his back as she unleashed her wrath upon him. “I told you that this was not a shoot to kill operation.”

“I panicked, Ma’am.”

“They weren’t firing at you! They weren’t even armed!”

He ducked his head, his jaw working. She prowled the space in front of him, furious that he could stand there like a soldier with his straight back and hard expression, and not give in to the rushing tide of consequences. 

“Did you even realise that there was a little girl with them?” she challenged.

“She hid when the gun went off and then you came around the corner and-”

A whimper; Alex frowned at him. He cocked his head, the tense exchange interrupted. She rallied around for another swipe, but then, there was another whimper. 

Alex’s eyes were drawn to the conference table, which she carefully knelt beside. Underneath was the girl, curled up with her knees against her chest, eyes like saucers as they fixed on her.

“How did you get in here?” Alex asked playfully, the ferocity gone. 

She got down under the table, sliding herself so that she could sit with her head ducked beside the girl. They didn’t move any closer or farther apart, and after a few moments of anticipatory silence, Alex held out her hand, palm upright. An offering.

Red boots hurried into the room, interrupting the quiet. “I’m sorry, I got distracted and I didn’t realise the door was still open. I only took my eyes off her for one-”

Kara stopped, obviously confused when she didn’t find her sister, but Alex’s attention on the girl didn’t waver. Eventually, after a few nervous glances up and down, the girl shuffled an inch or two closer and timidly put her small hand into Alex’s.

_ Small victory.  _ “My name is Alex,” she whispered. “What’s yours?”

The little girl sniffed, shifting another inch closer and mumbling something.

It sounded like  _ Jenny. _

~

Jenny refused to move far from Alex as they went about the protocol for humans killed in a crossfire.

Down the phone, she took a serious amount of heat from Washington for the error, and was threatened with a congressional inquiry. In the end, it was a fruitless attempt to warn her against letting this happen again, but the guilt burning a hole in her stomach was enough for that.

When she got off the phone, she held her head in her hands.  _ How the hell did J’onn do this? _

They looked for family for the two victims, and found out very quickly that they had only moved to National City recently. Both paternal grandparents were still alive, but they were in care homes, and both of the deceased were only children. That meant it had really just been the three of them left.

_ One now _ , Alex thought, cradling the sleeping girl in her arms.

They sat in the conference room, where Jenny had curled up on her lap and fallen asleep on her chest while she went another round with social services. Setting her phone down, she ran her hand down Jenny’s back and sighed.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

There was a light knock on the door, and without looking, she waved in the visitor. Kara tentatively approached her end of the table and took a seat.

“She’s grown attached to you,” she said quietly.

Alex stroked through the girl’s hair. “I think I’m growing pretty attached, too.”

“I can see that.” Kara caught Alex’s hand and held it between her own, smoothing her thumbs over the knuckles. “Alex, what are you going to do?”

“I’m meeting with a woman from CPS tomorrow. She wasn’t keen on us putting in a cryptic message through our official channels.” She finally tore her eyes away from Jenny. “She thinks we’re trying to introduce hybrids into the foster system as an experiment or something.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Kara complained.

“That’s what I said. It’s an old Cadmus conspiracy,” Alex huffed. “But there have been stranger things that have happened in this city, I guess.”

Over the next few days, Alex battled with the system, tussling with a certain  _ Mrs Swanson _ who was adamant that under no circumstances were they accepting alien refugees from the DEO. She tried to reason with Mrs Swanson, who sat on the other side of the desk with a pinched expression. She made it as far as threatening to go over her head, to which Mrs Swanson held her chin high and said  _ So, do it. _

She did, and found that no matter how high up the chain she went, the moment she mentioned the situation, she was closed down. She came close to smashing her phone against through the floor to ceiling windows in her office, unable to comprehend why no one would accept this poor little girl with no home.

_ Is this a punishment from Washington? _ Alex briefly thought, before pushing it away as paranoid, neurotic thinking.

As the days trickled past, she found ways to be Jenny’s caretaker, because she felt a sense of duty, she supposed. She fed her, bathed her, kept her entertained. Eliza was in National City at the drop of a hat when she called, and she learned by following her mother’s example. 

Jenny called for her parents, and grew upset when Alex tried to explain that they weren’t coming. It was gut-wrenching, to disappoint such a innocent, vulnerable child. Other than that, the girl rarely talked, but Alex wondered if that was due to her age, the trauma, or simply a shy personality.

It was enough time for Alex to know that the DEO was no place to keep a human girl. They combed through the deceased couple’s apartment, which didn’t feel remotely right, but necessary. She wandered into Jenny’s bedroom, seeing the pictures, the toys, the flowery bedsheets.

Propped against the pillows was a stuffed bunny rabbit, and she caught sight of a picture on the bedside table. She picked it up, seeing Jenny as a baby in her crib, cuddling the bunny tight to her chest. Stroking a thumb over the picture, she marvelled at how the rabbit was bigger than Jenny.

She decided to take the stuffed bunny back with her, and when she took it back to the DEO, Jenny sat up immediately in excitement.

“Marshmallow!” she squealed happily, reaching out for the toy. As Alex gave it to her, she hugged it tight to her chest. “You brought him!”

“He’s missed you,” Alex said, sitting down on the floor next to her. “Are you going to introduce us?”

Jenny’s eyes glimmered at the prospect of a game, and she held out the bunny’s hand.

“Marshmallow, this is ‘Lex,” the girl managed, patting her forearm.

“Alex,” she corrected, shifting closer and shaking the toy’s hand. She didn’t have a lot of time, the mountain of reports on her desk calling to her, but it was the most Jenny had spoken since she’d been found cowering between trash bags in an alleyway, and she was damned sure she was going to play along if it meant bringing this little girl out of her shell. “Hello, Marshmallow. Nice to meet you.”

A fondness took root and grew as they played.

~

Another week wrestling with government branches, and Alex was in a slump.

She watched through an observation window as Supergirl flew above Jenny, making her squeal and laugh. An idea had been forming in her mind for a while now, and seeing her sister with the toddler only cemented it. 

When she voiced it, Rachael was flabbergasted. “You want to foster her?”

“For the time being, yes,” Alex said. “I don’t know what else to do. She’s so small, and young. She might even need to see a child therapist.” She scratched along her bicep, arm wrapped across her ribs. “She shouldn’t be housed in a base for deadly aliens.”

“So call CPS.”

“We did. We went through our government channels, and they said that until we can clear up what actually happened that night, they don’t want anything to do with her.”

Rachael blinked. “They said that?”

“In so many words,” Alex sighed. “They were suspicious that we were trying to introduce an alien child into the population. Something to do with an old Cadmus conspiracy online.” She rolled her eyes. “And besides, they’re swarmed as it is.”

“Wow.” Rachael shook her head, getting back on track. “Alex, I’m not sure this is the best decision.”

“Rachael…”

“Her attachment to you is unhealthy. She went through something traumatic, and now she’s clinging to you.”

“Not since she recovered from the initial shock,” Alex refuted, waving at Jenny and Kara, the giggles filtering through into the observation room with them. “Look, I’ve thought about this, a lot. And if you don’t want this, I’m not going to force you to be a part of it.”

“Before we even get...to that…” Rachael scoffed, running her hands through her hair. Alex could see she was losing her patience. “Before we even touch on the fact you’re dropping me right into the deep end and making this a choice between me and her, what about when  _ you _ grow too attached? What about the day you decide to adopt instead of foster?”

“Would that be so bad?” Alex wasn’t sure if it was extreme deja vu or vertigo, but her head began to spin. “Do you not want kids?”

“I do!” Rachael said defensively. “I would, at some point. Maybe even with you, if we got there. But Alex, you’re a secret agent. Your job is dangerous.” 

“And as director, I’m rarely in the field-”

“Director, yes. Of the DEO. The organisation that killed her parents.” Lights swirled up over Rachael’s collar, showing on her neck. “Is this really the best path to motherhood?”

“The best path?” Alex echoed incredulously. “Rachael, this little girl is an orphan. She has no one else.”

“So, you’re taking away her chance at a normal family life because of guilt?”

Alex snorted. “You know that the system doesn’t work as kindly as that.”

The lights blazed, each colour bleeding to red one by one. “What about the day when you have to look that little girl in the eye and tell her that you gave the order to murder her parents?”

“That was not how it went down, and you know it!” Alex hissed. “I did not authorise the killings.”

“Do you think it’s gonna matter to her?” Rachael stepped closer. “You were in charge of the squad the night her parents died. I don’t think it’s gonna matter that you didn’t pull the trigger.”

Alex clenched a hand on her utility belt. “How  _ dare _ you,” she seethed. “I’ve tried my best to show you that this organisation is being run differently under me.”

“Yet two humans lost their lives because of a runaway mistake.” Rachael waved around her. “I’d hate to think about the bloodshed that could happen if you guys were firing on all cylinders.”

Alex closed her eyes, trying to tamper down the need to lash out. “I’ve tried to convince you, to show you I care about your community as much as I care about doing anything in my power to protect the citizens of this city.”

Rachael rocked back. “My  _ community ? _ What, are we all the same to you now?”

This was unravelling, coming apart in her hands-  _ by her hands-   _ and Alex huffed out a breath of frustration. “That isn’t what I mean-”

“What do you mean?”

“I  _ mean _ that you can’t-”

“Stop.” Rachael shoved her sleeves up past her elbows. “Give me your hand.”

Alex blinked at the shift. “What, why?”

“Because I can’t argue with you right now.” Rachael’s nostrils flared as she held her hand out between them. “I just need you to know how I feel.”

Alex hesitated, glancing once through the observation window before holding out her hand. Rachael grabbed it, glaring at her, and then-

Sitting at the top of the staircase with Kara, listening to the soft cry of her mother as a man with gruff voice told her that Jeremiah was dead. Seeing Kara’s torment as she held her dying aunt in her arms, knowing  _ she _ caused it, knowing J’onn had covered for her. The betrayal and hurt in Maggie’s eyes when she announced she had gone to Emily and knew about the cheating. Scrabbling at glass walls of the tank, lungs screaming,  _ drowning- _

Alex fell to her knees with a gasp, palms flat on the ground to hold her trembling body up. Rachael stumbled back against the window, sucking in air like she had sprinted the length of the corridor outside. She staggered towards the door without another word, slamming it as she left, and Alex’s arms buckled.

Kara and Jenny found her a few minutes later, still curled up on the floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [next chapter you’ll get an explanation for chapter 4’s cliffhanger, I swear...but like, it’s right there in the tags, so feel free to speculate…]


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An important one, but a sad one.

The first night was the toughest. Alex didn’t sleep a wink, scared to take her eyes off of the girl for a single second.

She let Jenny take the bed, finding it ridiculous that such a small bundle had such a large space to sleep, but until she figured out a few more of the real aspects and consequences of her decision - she needed another apartment, with more than a single bedroom, for one- it would have to make do. 

Stress also kept her awake. The process of fostering, she knew, would be an arduous one. She was a lesbian parent who, on official paperwork, was in a high-risk job at the FBI. Whether her sexuality would play a part, she wasn’t sure. It was California, after all. But if she had a partner-

Alex turned over on the couch, thumping at her pillow. That was another problem entirely. It had been a few hours since Rachael had stormed out of the DEO that afternoon, but she still trembled when recalling each sharp, jagged memory. 

A few days into the screening process, a meeting with a social worker ran late, and she was grateful that Kara was happy to babysit for as long as it took. 

Yet when she opened the door to her apartment that night, it was dark. She froze, searching for Kara but finding Rachael on the couch, Jenny sleeping across her knee. She made a mental note to call her sister and ask what talk took place, not imagining that Kara gave up so easily after what had happened in the observation room. 

As quietly as she could, Alex closed the door, and shuffled over.  

“She’s precious,” Rachael whispered, gently combing her fingers through Jenny’s hair.

“She is.”

“I’m sorry, for…” Rachael glanced up at her. “I was so mad. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“I let you do it.” Alex perched on the edge of the couch beside her. “Considering what I said, I think I deserved it.”

“Still,” Rachael sighed, and offered Alex her free hand. “Please?”

Without hesitation, Alex slipped her fingers through Rachael’s and then waves of comfort, forgiveness and sadness washed over her. She shuddered, collapsing back against the cushions of the couch. This experience they shared was so different every time, but it was always intense.

Rachael kissed her temple, and then scooped Jenny up in her arms. Alex took long, gulping breaths as she recovered. She had enough energy to maneuver so that the bed was in plain sight.

“I’ve come to care about the thought of you, and I think maybe I’d like to come to care for you, too,” Rachael whispered. “I’m in this for as long as you’ll have me.”

Alex frowned, chin on the top of the couch, trying to read body language in the dark. “That’s an odd thing to say.”

Rachael chuckled, looking down at the sleeping girl as she tucked her in. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

~

Twenty minutes later, Alex had rooted a camp bed from the bottom of the wardrobe, and set it on the floor by the couch, letting Rachael take the comfier option of the couch.

“Remember when you asked me why I said you literally had a part of me?”

The question came out of the darkness, and Alex turned her head towards the whisper. “Yeah?”

“It’s the bond,” Rachael revealed.

Alex saw her hand appear out from the side of the couch, lighting the air above her head with coloured lights. They were never this illuminating in the daytime, and she was stunned at how they appeared at night.

She reached up and slipped her fingers into Rachael’s as best she could given the awkward angle. Her palm tingled, and after a while she finally saw it; on her own forearm, a purple light appeared, swimming up the inside of her wrist to duck into their handhold. She had seen lights on her own skin before, but only after they bonded, like a temporary residue. She wasn’t aware that it could be there all of the time.

“Oh my god,” Alex said, full of awe.

“We rarely bond with other species, certainly not human, do you know why?”

“Why?” she breathed, seeing green light appear now, falling down her wrist in one graceful swoop to rest in the crook of her elbow.

“Because humans are bottomless voids. We give them so much, in this way, but they can’t give anything back.”

Her wonder crashed down as the meaning sank in. “Oh, Rachael-”

“I’m not finished,” Rachael said, tightening her hand around Alex’s. “It can be lonely, and draining, and with you I was scared to take that leap because of other experiences I’d heard about and...well...” Alex heard her shuddery intake of breath. “And because you’re the first human I’ve ever bonded with.”

“You, uh,” Alex stammered, scrunching her eyebrows up. “You bonded us after our first time?”

“I know, I couldn’t help it,” Rachael quietly admitted. “You were so curious and open and I thought you were something special. And you are, Alex. You’ve given me more care, more passion, more affection than I could ever have imagined.”

Alex watched as the lights all glowed brighter for a second, and then Rachael continued. “It’s almost as if I am getting something back through the bond.”

“Well, I’m glad,” Alex said, arching up to kiss the back of Rachael’s hand. “Because I love you.”

Usually, Rachael would finish the phrase off with her own loving response, but she didn’t say anything. Alex tried to suppress the insecure pang in her stomach, but it ached. She kept her hand at a strange angle, but it had begun to feel ridiculous.

Then, Rachael finally spoke, “Cavurians can also see soulmates. We can see the soul bonds that humans can’t.”

Alex stiffened, clamping down on Rachael’s hand so hard that the lights dimmed.

“Soulmates aren’t-they aren’t-” She took a deep breath. “I’m not lying when I say I love you, Rachael.”

“Just like I’m not lying when I say that I love you. Because I do, more than I’ve loved another Cavurian, nevermind a human.” Silence rippled between them for a few beats, and then; “You know how I knew Supergirl is your sister Kara?”

“How?”

“Because she’s not human. She doesn’t have a bond. Once I saw that, I saw the similarities between her and Supergirl and, well, it clicked,” she said. “That doesn’t mean she won’t find love and happiness on Earth, it just means she isn’t bonded with another human.”

The realisation at where this conversation was headed came like an avalanche, snowing Alex under.

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

“Rachael, where are you going with this?” she asked lowly.

“I’m not your soulmate, Alex.”

_ Why are you saying this?  _ Her jaw felt locked so she couldn’t reply, she pulled her hand out of Rachael’s, whose own hand retracted like a flower closing up from the sun, lights dimming.

“I know who she is, and so do you.” A pause. “It’s okay to miss her, you know, even though you’re with me. The soulbond is very strong.” Another. “I know that one day, she could come back to you.”

Alex’s throat constricted.  _ Maggie. _

She shook her head, thinking about Jenny sleeping in the bed behind them. “It’s not possible. We wanted different things. It wouldn’t work.”

Rachael shrugged, turning so her back was to Alex. “If it’s meant to be, you’ll make your way back to each other, just wait.”

Alex didn’t know what to say to that, so she just stared at the ceiling, getting no sleep.

~

That night was the lowest point, the breaking point. But they didn’t break. They got better.

Over the following week, they made time to sit down and talk it through, both of them coming to the conclusion that, ready or not, they wanted to build on this thing they had together. Rachael was committed, and she planned to prove it.

She helped Alex search for a new apartment, helped her move in, surfed through dozens of shopping aisles with her as they prepared to furnish their new home. She held Alex’s hand on the drive to the attorney’s office, where she signed the papers that made her Jenny’s legal guardian. Soon after, they celebrated a year together with joy and affection and the euphoria that came from climbing a mountain and reaching the top.

Their first Sunday in their new home, Alex sat with Jenny colouring while Rachael cooked dinner. Spices filled the air, as did the sound of Rachael singing. She curled her voice around each syllable like she had the night she captured Alex’s attention in the bar.

Jenny giggled every so often at a particularly long note, and soon, Alex and Rachael were laughing too. 

Eventually, Alex got up to hug her girlfriend from behind. She swayed with her in their new kitchen for a few seconds, and later, when Jenny was fast asleep, she took Rachael’s hand and they made slow, sensual- if muted- love in their new bed.

And finally, as the tentativeness dissipated into a routine, Alex relaxed into it, this tentative family unit they had built.

A new apartment, a new home, a new life.

She was in love, had a restructured family, and the ache in her chest that thinking of her time with Maggie used to cause lifted slightly. They hosted a dinner party for everyone a few weeks later, after which she spent the evening watching cartoons with Jenny tucked between her and Eliza, catching snippets of laughter between Kara, Rachael and Winn in the kitchen. She brimmed with happiness and contentment. 

It was around the 5 month mark when it fell apart-

Alex left Jenny at her babysitter’s, and then drove Rachael to work. The Cavurian didn’t get out of the car right away, looking at Alex with a gleaming idea in her eyes.

“Maybe we could take Jenny to Midvale for the weekend?” she suggested, pulling down the sun visor on her side.

Alex tipped her head, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, she could build sandcastles.” Rachael fixed her hair in the mirror. “I know she’s too young to surf yet, but she could splash around in the shore.” She snapped the sun visor back up again. “It could be fun.”

“Absolutely. I’ll call mom.”

Rachael grinned, leaning over to kiss her, lingering a little too long for a regular goodbye.

~

The weekend never happened.

Rachael arrived at the DEO that evening in a fluster. Agents parted easily to let her through as she rushed towards Alex, who stood up straighter in alarm.

“Alex, I need help,” Rachael pleaded.

“What’s wrong, what’s happening?” Alex asked, checking her for any sign of injury.

“Come with me,” she breathed, tugging Alex’s hand and leading her towards a side office. 

Alex closed the door behind them, not bothering to turn on the lights and letting the glow from the city be enough. There was something intimate about being only shapes in the dark that she thought Rachael needed at that moment. 

“My family is sending me a distress signal,” Rachael explained, fishing a device out of her pocket and holding it out for Alex to see. Spinning discs with patterned edges appeared on the surface, forming the Cavurian language.

“What does it say?” Alex asked, watching the motion of the discs revolving in and out of what she assumed were words.

“They’re asking for me to come home.”

Alex’s eyes met Rachael’s, and in the sheen of city lights, she saw pure terror, pure fright.

“You know that I was sent to Earth as a child with my brother all those years ago?”

“Yeah?”

“It was because war was brewing. Mom, dad and Laferia stayed behind cause she was old enough, but it just never did. I went back to visit a few times, but I'd made a life for myself on Earth and stayed here permanently.”

Alex nodded along at the anxious rambling. “You told me you were thinking of bringing your family here next time for a visit.”

“Yes,” Rachael said. “But see, old tensions have recently been arising and-” She shook the device in the air. “I think this is what this is about. I think war has finally broken out. Jefrone and Nekato were talking about it in the bar last week. They’re going home, too.”

Alex watched the discs rotating in faster rhythms, as if sensing the panic between the pair.

“What do I do, Alex?” Rachael asked, her voice shaking. “I can’t leave them.”

“You’re family is in distress, Rachael,” Alex said plainly, before chewing on the inside of her cheek. “This is your choice to make.”

Rachael nodded, staring at the communicator. It whirred quietly, as if the device itself was asking for an answer. “If it was Kara, or Eliza, you’d go?”

“Without hesitation,” Alex assured.

Rachael seemed ready to relent, but doubts surged back. “I can’t go back, not now. I mean, I last visited two years ago and I…”

She began to wander away from Alex. “We’ve just started this whole family thing. And I’m-I’m really happy right now, Alex.” As her thoughts gained traction, she paced more and more erratically. “But I can’t ignore my family’s distress. What do I  _ do _ ?”

“Listen, listen,” Alex soothed, striding forward and catching her by the shoulders. She tipped Rachael’s chin up so that green eyes swimming in tears finally focused on her. She lifted the hand not clasping the device and pressed their palms tight together. The connection stirred between them.

“We’re bonded, remember? You shared that with me. You told me you’d never done that with a human before,” Alex insisted, gently cupping her jaw. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here when you get back, waiting for you.”

Rachael worried her bottom lip. “You promise?”

“Always.”

~

They stood face to face in front of the multi-portal, their hands still clasped together as Winn activated the gateway. It hummed and then the air swirled purple, the path open.

“We don’t have a lot of time. It’s strained as it is, and that’s if someone doesn’t try and shut off the portal on the other side,” he cautioned.

“The portal is in the government’s building. It’s free for use by citizens every day,” Rachael said, and then turned to face Alex with a small smile. “Maybe I’ll bring mom and dad back to finally give you the Cavurian seal of approval.”  

“Maybe you should,” Alex parried, trying to stave off the nerves.

Rachael nodded, drawing closer and pressing their foreheads together. Winn cleared his throat and started fiddling with the tablet in his hand.

“When I get back, we’ll have that weekend,” Rachael whispered.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Alex replied. She pushed the device into Rachael’s hand. “This is now connected to the DEO mainframe. You just call me when you wanna come home, okay?”

“Home?” Rachael said slyly. “You mean to Earth?”

“No,” Alex said softly, dipping her head to catch her girlfriend’s eye. “I mean to me.”

They kissed, said goodbye, and parted.

~

She was reading signing off on reports when she learned what a catastrophic mistake she had made.

As Alex signed neatly at the bottom, she couldn’t help thinking it felt wrong to put her signature where J’onn’s name used to be. It had been months since he had left, and while he checked in as much as he could, she still found herself wondering where he could be at any given moment.  

Winn’s voice filtered into her office, announcing his arrival;

“...yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna make it tonight...no, it’s bad. I can’t...Okay, thanks. Next time for sure.” He ended the call and blew into her office, full of worms. “Hey, Alex? You’re gonna wanna see this.”

She followed him down to the command centre with trepidation. None of the base’s major siren calls were sounding, but her hackles were raised. Something wasn’t right.

“There’s a major biochemical emission alert blowing up on one of our intergalactic trackers,” he explained, trotting down the rest of the steps to his station.

She propped her hands on her hips. “Bioweapons?”

“Yes but nothing like anything we’ve seen before. We’re talking Cold War mutually assured destruction.” He fell into his chair and typed furiously, keys clacking in a rapid rhythm. He paused as the emmittor levels started tracking on his screen, scraping his hands through his hair. “Oh man, whatever population this is, it’s gonna be decimated.”

Maps and star charts flashed up onto the screens, and she moved away to get a better view of the bigger picture. She kept an eye on the emmittor levels that were being updated every five seconds.

Winn resumed tying quickly, until he suddenly stopped. The star pattern on the screen was familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.

“Which constellation?” she asked, darting her eyes over the maps on the screens.

No answer.

She turned to see Winn’s ghostly white face. He was staring at his computer screen, his fingers frozen on the keyboard.

“Winn? Which constellation?” she repeated, dread throbbing in her throat.  _ Which planet? _

He wiped his mouth with his hand, clicking twice with his mouse and leaning back. Looking down at his keyboard, he tore the atmosphere in half with two simple words;

“It’s Cavura.”

~

There were refugee transports on their way to Earth. They were all taken in by the DEO, screened, processed, and tested for any harmful radiation or chemicals.

It was days’ worth of work, and Alex insisted upon staying in the DEO for the whole time. Jenny went to stay with Kara, which she was thrilled about initially, but as time went on, Kara rang Alex more and more so she could listen to the upset little girl over the line.

She was sleeping on a cot in her office, keeping an eye on the containment areas. Every time the doors creaked open, revealing another free Cavurian, she popped her head up, swallowing down the disappointment each time Rachael didn’t show.

Every day, she wanted to hear the bleeps that would alert them to someone trying to contact the DEO, or that someone was trying to activate the multi-world-portal in the basement. She wanted Rachael’s voice to ring out over the comms, announcing that she was okay, that she was saved and coming home.

Alex would leap down the stairs, run into the room and into the arms of her girlfriend and hold her so, so tightly.

But it never happened.

Sleep-deprived and unshaven, Winn slouched into her office at 2am on the morning of the fourth day of processing the refugees. He slid down the wall beside her cot.

She sat up. He took a deep breath.

“We got given some official documents that one of the guys smuggled with him. He’s a high Tryort and well, Tryorts are like-”

“Judges on Cavura, I know,” Alex snapped.  _ Get to it get to it tell me-  _  “Rachael’s sister Laferia is one.”

Winn chose to start again more carefully. Even in the shadows of the office, she saw his hesitation. “He handed over the documents that he could get out, and they’re mostly just death notices. He worked in Trostmourn.”

Alex felt her entire body going numb. Rachael’s family.

Rachael.

Unbuttoning the top of his shirt, Winn swallowed as his head rolled towards her. “Her name was on one of the notices. It was after heavy shelling of the city.” He bowed his head, his voice barely making it to a whisper. “She’s gone.”

After that, Alex thought that he might have been apologising, but she couldn’t hear a sound above her own heartbeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All thoughts welcome x


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is personal, and tough, as I'm sure you can imagine. Thank you for everyone following along. x

Alex fell into a dream.

She stood in her apartment, her old apartment, before Jenny. Bonsai trees adorned the shelves, but they were limp and dying. She walked over, the air feeling like glue against her skin, and picked up the watering can that Maggie kept on the edge of the shelf. Luckily, it was full, and she set to work watering the plants.

When she was done, she returned the watering can and noticed another presence in the apartment. Rachael sat on the edge of the bed, watching her with sad eyes.

Alex rushed to her, kneeling and looking up into her face. “Rachael-”

“She’ll come back to you, Alex.” Rachael nodded towards the shelf. “I want you to be happy with her. Promise me, you’ll be happy.”

Alex tugged at her hands, gripping them in her own. “I shouldn't have let you go.”

“My love,” Rachael murmured, stroking her thumbs over Alex’s knuckles. “I’m free. I’m not in any pain.”

“God,” Alex choked, pressing her face to Rachael’s lap. “I'm sorry. This was my fault.”

Gentle hands let go of her own and carded through her hair. “Sweetheart, there’s nothing to forgive.”

“I love-”

She startled awake, light just beginning to seep over the horizon. Kara lay beside her, watching her with apprehension, eyes glistening in the dim bedroom.

Alex lifted her forearm, and watched a single blue light swirl up her wrist. It danced around her palm in a lazy circle, swam slowly up to her fingertip, blinkered twice, and died out.

“No,” she breathed, flipping her hand over and back a few times before admitting it.

_She’s gone._

“Oh, Alex,” Kara sniffed, curling into her sister as tightly as she could.

 

~

It was just like when her dad died. No body, no funeral. Just grief and an empty space in her life where love used to be.

Three nights since the news, and Alex was a zombie, slouching around her apartment at 3:12am. Her appetite was nonexistent, energy completely tapped, and yet the exhaustion that ran as deep as her bones did nothing to stem the thoughts bouncing in her skull.

After Winn had delivered the news, Alex had sat, stock-still on the cot, until Kara was called. She had tried to reach her sister through the fog of shock, of horror, but Alex felt like she was watching the interaction from afar. Finally, she managed to conjure up a single question.

_“Where’s Jenny?”_

After that, she spent a long time clutching the translated document that confirmed the announcement.

Walking through the DEO, consciously registering agents left and right averting their eyes, Alex had broken out into a cold sweat. She just about made it to the bathroom stall, door banging open, before she threw up the meagre contents of her stomach. Retching mostly bile, Alex clung to the porcelain bowl, the shock giving way to something much, much worse.

Now, she wandered aimlessly around her kitchen in the middle of the night. It was supposed to be her home, but she felt lost. Nothing seemed familiar to her, cast in shadows, and more than once she considered the space a stranger’s apartment.

She lowered herself down into a chair at her dining table, listening to the ticking clock on the wall. Her eyes ached in their sockets, body sluggish and hands trembling, but her mind would not shut off for more than twenty minutes of sleep at a time.

She had dealt with death before, even struggled under the weight of her own father’s demise for her high school years. But she had never dealt with death quite like this. Never a lover, never someone she had begun to build a home with. Never lost anyone in the harrowing way that high school history classes taught.

There was only one person apart from Rachael who had ever successfully talked her down, and if it had been a rational hour, Alex might have outright refused the option. Yet now she found herself unlocking her phone, searching through the speed-dial which had remained the same through several model changes, and calling a number that she hadn’t in years. She pressed her phone to her ear, heart stuttering in her chest.

_“The number you dialled has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in ser-”_

She jammed her thumb onto the screen to hang up and slammed the phone down on the tabletop. From her seat, she could see the circular ornament hanging by the door to the living room, and felt pangs in her stomach when she realised the design reminded her of the Cavurian language; of those spinning discs on the communicator had ended Alex’s dream and began her nightmare.  

First chance she got, she was tearing that thing off the wall. She didn’t care that it used to be her favourite piece of furnishing in her old apartment-

“Alex?” a sleepy voice whispered, preceding Kara's shuffles out into the dark kitchen. “It’s the middle of the night. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Alex rasped.

“You still can’t sleep?”

“I can’t stop thinking about-” _Fire, screaming, agony, people praying frantically-_ She caught a glimpse of the mournful expression being directed at her. “Stop looking at me like that.”

Kara played with the edge of her flannel pyjamas. “Have you even let yourself cry yet?”

“Why would you ask me that?” Alex snapped, standing up so abruptly that the chair skidded backwards a few inches.

“Alex-”

A little gasp. Alex and Kara both spun towards the doorway, where Jenny stood in her Supergirl onesie. She clutched Marshmallow’s bunny ear in a tiny fist, dangling him towards the floor.

Shooting one last glance at Alex, Kara breezed forward and scooped Jenny up into her arms.

“What are you doing up, munchkin? Let’s get you back to bed.”

Jenny stared at Alex over Kara’s shoulder, her little brow furrowed. Alex watched the bedroom door close, and then sank slowly back into the seat at the dining table, following the tick of the clock with baited breath as if each would be the last.

 

~

Two weeks later, and the night was now familiar; sitting against her couch with a bottle of scotch, staring into the fire as it went from roaring flames to a dying pile of ash. Kara offered to take Jenny on nights like these, and Alex let her, because it was for the best.

_God, what kind of mother does that make me? How can I look after a child when I can’t even look after myself?_

Deep in the midst of self-loathing, she heard a whoosh of her curtains, and then someone coming to find her.

“Go away, Kara,” she muttered.

“It isn’t Kara.”

Alex head shot up in surprise at the figure, only just making out their outline in the dying firelight.

“J’onn,” she breathed. “What are you doing here?”

“I was told you needed me, so I came,” he answered simply.

Her awe soured to resentment quickly. “Did Kara send you?” She raised the bottle. “She wants to stop me mourning, did you know?”

J’onn hummed sadly, not taking the bait. “Let me provide you with some company?”

“Be my guest,” she said, waving at the floor.

He lumbered around and came down beside her. She knew he could probably sense the guilt she was burdened with, the loss, but would want her to talk about it anyway.

His ever patient silence wore her down.

“I was a fool to fall for it. Thinking I could be happy again. A family, a girlfriend I loved so much.” She gritted her teeth. “I was so stupid.”

Instead of responding, he got back up to revive the fire. He carefully laid two logs criss-cross over the ash, and threw in another match for good measure. The dry twigs that had survived the first fire took to the flames immediately.

He settled back beside her, waiting again.

“I sent her to her death,” she revealed, taking a long swig of whiskey.

“You couldn’t have known that.”

“I convinced her to go back to Cavura. I told her that it was the right thing to do.” She was spluttering through tears before she even registered she was crying- finally, _finally_ crying. “I sent her to die, J’onn.”

“You didn’t-”

“I did,” she whispered, nodding, convinced. “I did. She knew in her gut that she wanted to stay, that something bad was going to happen, but I sent her away anyway.”

After two weeks, it was in the open, no longer rebounding off her skull but shrieking in the air around them. Tears dripped from her chin, and as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, she fell against him, managing three painful, gasping sobs against his shoulder. But then her body returned to its limbo- all the misery fading into nothing. She leaned back, weary, and grasped the neck of the whiskey bottle again.

“I felt the same way, when I fled with M’yri’ah and the children. I thought…” He tipped his head back, staring up at the ceiling. “If we had stayed hidden where we were, we not have been ambushed, and they would not have died.” Faintly, he shook his head. “The truth is, a decision was made because of what we knew at the time. And now, well, that is how things had to be.”

Listening to the pops and snaps of the new fire, Alex contemplated her studies of flesh-eating bacteria, (intergalactic species at that), and wondered what it was like to be in such a predicament, to be a patient of something eating her alive. Guilt had affected her like that before.

When she killed Astra, she almost couldn’t bear to be around Kara, knowing what she had done. When she couldn’t save her father, she could have crawled out of her skin with the self-loathing at how events turned out. When the drunken phonecalls to Maggie started, a whole other kind of guilt emerged, no less acidic.

“When they died, did you feel hollowed out like this?” She swiped the back of a trembling hand over her mouth. “Because I’m empty, J’onn. I don’t feel anything. I don’t even _feel_.”

He gestured in front of them. “You feel as if you could put your hand in that fire, and not feel the burn?” She cast her gaze down, ashamed, and he nodded his understanding. “Unfortunately, for me, I was full of the fire, and it almost consumed me.”

She took another swallow of whiskey, and then, hoarsely, “Could you just-?”

“I’m not going to eradicate any memories from you, Alex,” he said, getting there first. “I would be doing Rachael a disservice. And Jenny.”

“I’m not asking you to,” she huffed, watching the growing fire making shadows dance across his features. “Just-will you do something? I just don’t want to see them anymore. I just want to sleep.”

He stared into the fire, and Alex wondered if he was still here in National City with her, or elsewhere. Finally, he turned to her with unfocused eyes, which glowed red, and then were fixed on her completely.

“Come here,” he murmured, as if to soothe a child.

(Later, when the world was more clear, she realised that was exactly what he was doing).

Light as a feather, he cradled the side of her skull, his eyes glowing red again, and then she was asleep.  

 

~

Alex woke up on the couch, the fire still crackling as it died down, a blanket over her. She frowned as she sat up, thinking the whole thing was a dream, that wishful thinking had her imagining that J’onn had come to see her.

Dawn was breaking, her apartment cast in shades of milky blue, and her confusion only mounted. Didn’t she drink scotch last night? Where did the blanket come from?

She sighed and tampered down the fire before dragging herself the rest of the way to bed.

Eliza and Kara held an intervention the next day. (J’onn got saddled with Jenny, which they all laughed about later, when Alex was healed).

“Alex, you’ve been, well, depressed since Rachael passed away,” Eliza said cautiously, putting her hand over her daughter’s.

“We know it’s only been two weeks, but you’re only functioning for Jenny. And even then...” Kara’s eyes were so _sad,_ which usually never failed to make Alex’s blood boil, but now it didn’t possess any real impact.

“I have to,” Alex replied, squeezing a tissue in her fist. “I made a commitment to her. But I just- I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this on my own.”

“You aren’t alone, sweetheart,” Eliza insisted.

Alex slid her hand out from under her mother’s. “These past few days, I’ve just been thinking about all of these things-I don’t know I-” She shook her head, toying with the frayed edges of the tissue. “That little girl is an orphan. She deserves a chance with a loving, supportive family. Not a black ops agent. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“I was an orphan too, you did okay with me,” Kara said quietly.

Alex sighed. “I didn’t raise you, Kara.”

“I could argue you did, or at least you helped,” Eliza said. “Kara and I are here to help you, if you chose this path. But Alex, not if you’re wearing yourself down like this.”

Alex fixed her attention on the clock rather than her mother and sister, and as she watched the steady rotation of the second hand, she remembered with a jolt the failed call three nights after the news of Rachael’s death.

“You know the one person I wanted to call, after all this time, was Maggie? And I did, I finally did.” Alex wriggled her phone out of her pocket and put it on the table. “But her number’s different now, so all I got was the service voice telling me Maggie isn’t at that number anymore.”

Kara exchanged a look with Eliza. “I could get in contact with her, if you want,” she offered.

Alex scoffed. “What’s the point? Hey, Maggie, it’s been a while since I broke off our engagement, but my girlfriend died and-” She cut off, balling the tissue in her fists as Eliza reached over to clasp her bicep. “It was a stupid idea.”

Between Kara’s patient gaze and her mother’s gentle touch, Alex began to tremble.

“I’m sick of losing people I love,” she said. “I’m sick of missing people.”

She rested her elbow on the table, and held up her head. She was enveloped in a loving embrace from both sides.

Tears slipped freely down her cheeks, but she was too exhausted to cry.

 

~

J’onn struck a deal with her; he would masquerade as Alex Danvers at the DEO for a few weeks, if she took time off to heal. That way, she wouldn’t have to be paranoid about her charges believing she had lost her head. Soldiers talked, she knew, and she needed to retain their respect.

She packed herself and Jenny a bag and accepted Eliza’s offer of refuge in Midvale. The little girl held her hand on the way out to the car, toddling along, oblivious.

“Where are we going?” she asked, skipping between cracks in the sidewalk as Alex loaded the trunk.

“We’re going to go to on a trip with Eliza.”

“We are?” Jenny looked up at her with hopeful eyes, and despite the hell of the past few weeks, she smiled and nodded.

Her mother joined her outside, opening the car and lifting Jenny up into the child’s carseat. She ducked in after her, and Alex watched the ease that had come from years of experience. Would she ever…?

“Ready to go on a roadtrip?” Eliza asked, which had Jenny kicking happily as she strapped her into the seat. Then, to Alex, she posed the same thing, but gentler. “Are you ready?”

“No,” Alex replied honestly. “But let’s go anyway.”

When the initial excitement had worn off, Jenny began to get grumpy at such a long car journey, which was satisfied only by a brief stop at a McDonald’s. Content with her happy meal, Jenny let Eliza wipe salt off her chin and ask her menial questions about being excited for her trip.

Sitting in the front seat, Alex thought she should interact with them, join in the fun. Take off her seatbelt, eat something, _do something_. But she couldn’t. She was just staring the the registration of the car in front of where they were parked, reading the numbers and letters over and over until the shape of them became meaningless symbols.

Within fifteen minutes, Jenny was fast asleep, and Alex had her forehead against the window. The trees were a green wash outside, sunshine flittering in and out of the branches.

“You know, when I was told your father died, I wanted time to stop,” Eliza said, glancing at the rearview mirror. “I wanted to give it all up on my research. Stay inside and grieve all day. The world just wasn’t the same with Jeremiah.”

Alex played with a thread on the seam of her jeans, remembering vividly when she was seventeen and in the exact same position; sulking in the front seat, listening to her mother talk her through an emotional crisis, playing with a loose thread. She had been naive, then, thinking that losing her best friend would be the worst thing in the world.

Losing Vicky was painful. Losing Maggie was agony. But losing Rachael, she felt nothing at all, numb inside, like something was cut out of her and the anesthetic wasn’t wearing off.

“But you dragged me through it, Alex, kicking and screaming. You were tough, and strong, and you were determined that losing my husband wasn’t going to be the ruin of me.”  

“Is this what going home is about? Dragging me through it?” Alex said flatly.

Eliza looked over at her when they reached an empty intersection, shaking her head. “I won’t drag you through it, because I don’t think that’s what you need.”

“So what do I need?”

Her mother turned right, the long road home stretching out in front of them. “I think you can decide for yourself what you need, I just think you need time and space to do it.”

Alex tugged too hard on the thread and popped two of the stitches, revealing an inch-long sliver of bare skin.

 

~

It was dark by the time they arrived. Jenny slept soundly in Alex’s arms as she was carried into the Danvers’ home. She gently lay Jenny down on Kara’s bed and wished that the circumstances around this visit were different. Spying the nook between the beds, she wondered if she would sit and teach Jenny to read there. The girl was already picking up some basics, but Alex was eager not to push her too hard before she started school.

With a sigh, she went to lie on her own bed. Sleep, unsurprisingly, was rather elusive.

It was the next day, late into the morning as she sat in the warm sand with Jenny on her lap, that she considered her options.

She could honour her commitment to Jenny, see out the end of the fostering period, and then give her to the authorities so that she could find a family to be happy with. But really, even in the midst of the blurring grey days, Alex knew it would be heartless to just hand a child back because life got tough.

Those golden months with Rachael, in a new apartment, raising and teaching and caring for a child together; they hadn’t been all bliss, but close enough. Paradise, Alex knew, only existed in the human imagination, but she figured that those happy days and nights she had had, with laughter and love, had been the closest she had come since Maggie had walked out of her life.

But now Rachael was gone, and Alex had to decide if she had the strength to pull herself out of this dark hole and back into the sunshine, if she was strong enough to continue on this journey, if she was to be a single mother.

“Alex,” Jenny squeaked.

She blinked and looked down at the little girl, who was pointing downwards. She patted her hand into the sand, making a tiny imprint. Then she grabbed at Alex’s hand around her stomach and wiggled excitedly. Alex got the instruction pretty quickly, and pressed her own hand into the sand.

The two prints were such a contrast, but still a pair.

“What are we going to do with you, Jenny?” Alex asked aloud.

Could she give up this little girl that she had cared for during the last 5 months?

They returned to the house for lunch at noon, and then Jenny went for a nap. Alex stood out on the deck, staring up into the blue sky, wondering about that planet that was home to her lover, that was destroyed in hellfire. Visions haunted her, a combination of old Cold War-era nuclear PSAs and the snippets that J’onn had shared with her about the genocide on Mars.

The patio door slid open, and then Eliza was beside her, offering a steaming mug. She nodded her thanks and took it.

“How are you?”

“I’m not better.” Alex inhaled the lemon infused herbal tea, letting the scent alone calm her. “But I want to be better, for her.”

“You look like you didn’t sleep.”

Alex blew on the surface, watching the ripples. “Haven’t slept properly since. It’s like my body doesn’t know how anymore.”

Eliza nodded, staring out over the tree tops that dropped below the rise of the house. “You could be a good mother, Alex. A brilliant mother.” She ran her hands along the wooden balcony. “And I want you to know that if you decide to continue down this route, I will support you all the way.”

“Thanks,” Alex replied simply, sipping at the tea. She didn’t know what to do. When Rachael was there, when it was the three of them, she thought that this could be her family. That she had found happiness in a woman she loved and a child she adored as if Jenny were her own blood. And then…

She sighed and sipped again at the tea, looking out over the water lapping at the edges of the bay in the distance. “What you said in the car, was it true?”

“When I thought your father...well,” Eliza said, brushing some hair behind her ear. “The only place I would let myself cry was the shower, because it was the only time that I didn’t feel like I needed to be strong for you and your sister.”

Alex nodded, closing her eyes and thinking of her father before Cadmus, the man she had admired and adored. She opened them again when she felt her mother’s hand on her bicep.

“You were always the strongest of all of us, Alex. But you have to let this out, let yourself feel it,” she pleaded quietly. “If you don’t, it will swallow you whole.”

In the evening, Eliza entertained Jenny as Alex trudged up the stairs and into the bathroom, locking herself in. She set the shower to the hottest that she could bear, and stepped into the punishing spray. A dam threatened to burst, and she let it, at last.

She mourned Rachael, and Maggie, and the women in between. Her crash, her recovery, Jenny’s birth parents, ducking out of seeing Maggie after her promotion. She clawed at the scars across her hips, and let herself miss her father, miss J’onn, miss her old apartment, where everything seemed so much simpler. A lifetime of regrets washed over her, crippling her, bringing her to her knees.

She collapsed to the floor of the shower, recalling that fateful day; watching Rachael go through the portal to Cavura, half a mind to stop her, or follow her, but doing neither. Instead, she had stood there, lips still tingling from their kiss, no idea that the rug was about to be yanked from under her feet.

_God, Rachael-_

Grief, sharp as a knife, finally plunged its way through her, cutting away the numbness.

Finally, she didn’t have to be strong, and she wept. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed. Find me here on twitter: @santonaranja


	8. Chapter 8

Going back to National City three weeks later with a clear head, Alex readjusted to regular work again. She was grateful that J’onn,  _ as Director Danvers _ , had finished up the refugee situation, meaning she didn’t have to face it. 

With some help from a few of Rachael’s friends, Alex boxed up whatever she didn’t want to hold on to. The things she did, however, she treasured, and her apartment became less and less like a catacomb. 

On the hard days, she would take her lunch into the specialised room with the padded walls, lock the door and sit down on the cushions. There was a setting on the screen that reminded her of the coloured lights of the Cavurian bond. Sometimes Winn would join her, sometimes she would cry. Other times, both of them would. And then, brushing crumbs to the floor, she would kiss his cheek and go back out with her game face firmly etched into place.

Weeks passed, and then months as she got back into the swing of work. Christmas, Kara’s Earth birthday, Jenny’s birthday, the anniversary of her fostering came and went. Some nights were harder than others in an empty bed, learning to live as a single mother, but the deepening relationship between the two of them made it worth it.

She dealt with tantrums, and tears, and sickness. With small hands batting at her in the middle of the night just to help her go to the bathroom. With hours of walking around with a child in her arms which-  _ hips reinforced with Cadmus technology or not- _ was exhausting.  

She also fielded the questions about Jenny’s mother and father, which grew more and more infrequent, and about Rachael.

_ “Why doesn’t Rachael come to play anymore?” _

_ “She...she isn’t here anymore. She’s somewhere else.” _

Alex wasn’t sure that she liked the idea of Jenny forgetting her biological parents. She had lost them at an age where eventually, she might not remember them at all, and yet it was impossible to explain to the girl what had happened. She couldn’t encourage her to maintain the memory. Not so young, anyway.

A year after fostering Jenny, the social worker that Alex had kept in touch with invited them into a meeting and asked whether she had thought anymore about this being a long term arrangement. What followed was a series of visits and inspections, putting Alex and Jenny through their paces in the subtlest of ways. 

One night, Alex sat at her island, filling out another round of paperwork when a timid voice called her name. 

“Alex?”

“Yes sweetie?” she said, trying not to sound as distracted and tired as she felt.

“Are you my mommy?”

Alex stiffened, her attention shooting to the girl lingering on the other side of the island, lethargy vanishing in an instant. “What was that?”

“Daisy from playgroup was talking about her mommy who played with her and picked her up and got her ice cream after...” She grew shy, peering up at Alex with those shimmering green eyes. “Are you mine?”

Alex knew she had to chose her next words very carefully. She slid off the stool and rounded the island, crouching down to Jenny’s height. “I’m not, really.” She fixed a loose strand of hair behind Jenny’s ear. “But I can be, if you want me to be?”

Jenny chewed her bottom lip. “Do I have to say now?”

Alex smiled, kissing her forehead. “No, you don’t.”

It was announced a few days later, when they were in the park. They fed ducks and fish in the ponds, Jenny fascinated by the swishing bodies of the koi. Still entranced by them as they sat on a bench at the edge of the water, she had kicked her feet and very seriously said, “Alex?”

“Yes, Jenny?”

“I want you to be my mommy.”

So there were more arguments over bedtime, more glitter being spilled across the kitchen tiles, more attempts not to cave at a trembling lip every time Alex scolded misbehaviour.

And suddenly, it had been a year.

A year since Rachael, since Cavura, since all of it.

And a year and a half after letting a precious orphan into her home, Alex made the final decision. She signed the adoption papers on a Monday morning, taking the day off to go for a picnic with Kara and Jenny. She watched Jenny’s glee as Kara bounced her niece on her shoulders, making her fly through the air.

That fourth of July, everyone went to Midvale.

Alex stood on the deck as the sun went down, letting the wind lift her hair. Kara was tickling Jenny’s stomach and drawing out sharp patches of giggles.

The rippling tree tops hypnotised her until her mother joined her, standing on the other side of the telescope. It was a far cry from the last time they were in this position, a year before.

“Is she excited to start kindergarten in the fall?” Eliza asked.

Alex shrugged, turning to watch Kara lift Jenny and spin her in the air, causing another stirring of delighted squeals. “Depends on what day of the week it is.”

Eliza barked out a quick laugh. “She takes after you, then.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“If she picks up half of your good traits, she’ll turn out perfect.”

Alex smiled at that, full and real. For once, her stomach wasn’t lined with the anxiety of failure.

Jenny wandered over, rubbing her eye with one hand and tugging Alex’s jeans with the other. She bent down, wincing at the protest of her hip, which had been giving her issue all day.

“Bedtime?” she prompted, getting a sleepy nod.

She hauled Jenny up into her arms, setting her against her good hip. Sucking her thumb into her mouth, Jenny sighed happily and put her head into the crook of Alex’s neck.

And right then, a silent, invisible transformation was acknowledged. Alex went from being  _ the person who had adopted a child _ to  _ a mother _ . She carefully took Jenny upstairs to her childhood room, tucking her into the bed, the girl out like a light before her head touched the pillow. Alex perched on the edge, watching her steady breathing, and then looked across at Kara’s bed, remembering those sleepless nights just a year before.

When she went back downstairs, she diverted into the kitchen to grab a cold beer from the fridge, and went to join the others in the living room, catching the tail-end of the conversation between Winn and James.

“...Ha! That’s just because you wanted to date Zoe and she let you down gently before going back to Metropolis again.”

“Who’s Zoe?” she asked.

Winn whipped around, glancing anxiously at James to help him out. “Oh, uh…she’s Maggie’s friend.”

Alex smiled at how he paled and waved a hand in dismissal. “You two have been seeing her again, haven’t you?”

“Since her promotion.” James slipped a hand into his pocket. “Sawyer’s cool. I missed her.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Good. Really good.” Winn jiggled his shoulders and raised his beer. “Still a good egg.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” Alex played with the label of her bottle. “You know, I’d love to just talk to her again. I don’t know how that would go down but, just something as simple as coffee. She was always such a stabilising force when things got tough.”

_ Like Rachael was. _

She peeled the label off, but it didn’t come off cleanly, papery patches remaining. James put his hand on her shoulder, as if he knew, and she sagged a little before going to find a seat.

Her hip ached.

~

The next morning, Jenny watched cartoons, sandwiched between Eliza and J’onn, who was visiting for the holiday. Alex went hunting for Kara, who had been missing since breakfast. She found her sitting cross-legged on the floor of Eliza’s room, rifling through a huge box of packages.

“What are you doing?”

“Reminiscing,” Kara answered, pulling out one of the packages. Carefully, she unwrapped it like a gift, and revealed old photograph envelopes. She shuffled the pictures out, and then spread them on the carpet.

“Reminiscing?” Alex eased down beside her. “God, are each of those packets filled with my embarrassing childhood memories?”

“Not all of them,” Kara said cryptically. She rifled through the box until she found what she was looking for; she cradled a package with CatCo’s logo stamped on the front. She held them for a beat or two, and then handed them to Alex.

Surprised, Alex took them, and then she almost dropped them. They were high definition images of her and Maggie, all candids, caught off guard at scenes, in Kara’s apartment, at the bar.

“James printed them off from stuff he’d captured over the stretch of your engagement. We were gonna frame each of them and have one on every table at the wedding.” Kara sighed, toying with a bracelet. “When you and Maggie broke up, I panicked because I didn’t wanna throw them away but…”

“You hid them here,” Alex finished, flicking from the top picture to the next. “You brought them when we came back here.”

“Yup.” Kara moved to play with the hem of the sweater she wore. “Are you mad?”

“No, I understand why you did it.” Alex’s hold faltered on one photograph. It was her and Maggie sharing a sweet kiss on the night they had gathered their friends and family at her apartment and announced their engagement.

For just a flash, she was in the desert on one knee, staring into Maggie’s eyes and prying open the ringbox in her hand.

She flipped the photograph, clearing her throat. “What made you get them out, now?”

“I know James and Winn have been hanging out with Maggie and I just…” Kara smiled at one of the three of them, Maggie getting a kiss on both cheeks from the Danvers sisters. “Is it wrong that sometimes I miss her, too?”

“No, of course not,” Alex assured, frowning. “I wasn’t sure that you and Maggie really got along all that well.”

Kara stared at another photograph in her hand. All of their friends gathered together at the bridal shower, minus her and J’onn. Alex glimpsed the serious expression on her sister’s face before she blurted; “Alex, there’s something I should tell you about when you were in the hospital-”

Jenny chose that moment to barrell into the room, and they both lunged to protect the photographs.

“Careful, honey,” Alex warned, looking up at her daughter’s face. “These are delicate.”

“Why don’t you sit down with your mom and I and look through the pictures?” Kara suggested.

Jenny plopped down, bouncing slightly as she observed. Alex turned her attention back to Kara, but the wholehearted way she had taken to Jenny’s presence implied that it was a conversation to be continued another time.

“She’s pretty,” Jenny chirped.

A little finger pointed at Maggie’s grinning face, making Kara and Alex share a conspiratory smile.

“She  _ is _ pretty,” Alex agreed.

That afternoon when they packed the car for the drive back to the city, Alex pulled Kara aside and asked her what she had been trying to say.

“Oh, nothing,” Kara said. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Alex wasn’t convinced, but let it go. It was years ago, she was past it.

The whole drive home, wind billowing through her hair, Alex was aware that during this holiday weekend, something inside had shifted.

~

J’onn’s next visit wasn’t until Alex’s birthday, and he brought her an electric blue clasp for her wrist. She turned the thick band over and over in her hands. 

“It’s beautiful, thank you,” she said, perplexed at the design. “I’ll, uh, I think there’s a dress this could match…”

“It’s not jewellry,” he said, bemused. “I found it on a planet called Alacrucia, and was given it as a gift after saving a queen and her people from a vicious predator.”

“Oh, you’re regifting it? Congratulations, you’ve acclimatized to Earth again.”

They shared a soft chuckle as he took it back from her. “Blue is the colour of royalty, there. The leaders of the nations wear these blue bands around their wrists.” Carefully, he wound it around her wrist, where it coiled like a snake, and tightened it until it fit snugly around her joints.   

She twisted her forearm, the lights of her kitchen glimmering on the clasp, sparkling up many shades of blue. “Wow, thank you.”

“A symbol of courage, leadership and strength,” he said. “Happy birthday, Alex.”

While Alex fixed them lunch, they discussed the surprise party being held at Kara’s apartment later that night- it wasn’t a surprise, since Jenny had it slip, but Alex would pretend anyway, lest she upset the girl _. _ Jenny sat on his lap, pulling her cheeks wide apart so that he could see the tooth she was missing.

“The tooth fairy came, Uncle J’onn!”

“Did she?” he said merrily, playing along. “And did she leave you anything nice?”

“She left candy under my pillow!”

“Well,” he rumbled, shooting Alex a sly look. “Perhaps I should knock one of my teeth out and see if she’ll leave me some candy, too.”

They left Jenny in front of the TV watching a movie as they went to do the dishes. Alex took the blue band off, not wanting it to get soaked in suds. J’onn lifted a new tea towel from a drawer, and Alex smirked at the ease with which they settled into the domestic task. 

“You prefer to wash?” she offered, rolling up the sleeves of her shirt. 

J’onn smiled, holding up the green and white towel. “I’m alright.”

For a while, they were content to wash dishes, listening to the slosh of the water, the silly cartoon voices on the TV and the fits of giggles that Jenny occasionally let out. But Alex knew J’onn was building towards something, and worried her lower lip in anticipation. 

Eventually he declared; “I am considering a return to the DEO, if you’ll allow it.”

“Oh,” was all that Alex could muster as she let a plate dip back into the water. “You want the reins back?”

“Not at all,” he replied, drying a bowl and setting it delicately back on the island. “I was wondering if I might be reinstated as a field agent.”

Alex squinted, rubbing a stubborn lump from the end of a knife. “You want to go back into the field? With me in charge?”

“I trust your capabilities, Director Danvers,” he said. “And it would be part-time, of course. I’m still involved with M’gann, trying to connect all the brothers and sisters that we have met across the cosmos.” 

While she tried to maintain a neutral expression, Alex guessed he could sense her delight at the thought of having him back. He had been sorely missed over the last few years.  

She hummed, pulling the plug and flicking water from her fingertips into the sink. “Let me think about it,” she teased. “I hope you understand, I’m going to have to vet you. Full background search, vigorous training, various trials and assessments. Just to make sure you’re up to scratch.” 

“Of course...” He beamed, a twinkle in his eye. “Ma’am.”

~

Leadership, Alex had discovered, required much more patience than she thought she possessed.

When leading squads on missions, or task forces, or even in the lab, it was a simple chain of information passing. Process, assess and direct. But before, there had always been safety nets. If she made a bad decision in the field, J’onn could fix it, or Kara could back her up.

If she made a bad decision now, it cost lives. Either her soldiers’, or worse, civilians.

She had listened into the operation on an earpiece, giving directions to the squad leader if needed, but interagency relations with the NCPD had been problematic for a while, and it had all gone wrong when a DEO agent lost his temper during a raid. A fray erupted, channels of communication got muddled, and she was left to clean up a case of friendly fire.

The mission was a hash job, their planning and execution a shambles, and Alex threw the earpiece down onto the desk. Winn flinched, but kept his head down.

Kara made it back first, tramping down the steps with a disheartened expression.

“I still miss you out there,” Kara complained, dropping into a seat. “Things go wrong way more often.”

“Well, you won’t miss me when you hear me rip this guy a new one,” she said, continuing to prowl.

Kara brushed some dust from the House of El symbol on her chest. “I mean, the NCPD weren’t-”

“Kara.” She held up a hand. “Let me do this.”

“I can’t watch you fire someone.” Kara pushed herself off the desk and inclined her chin on the way past. “I’ll call you later.”

Alex tapped her foot as she watched Kara go, but then went back to her furious pacing. The relationship with the NCPD had been cut off around the time that Turncoat would have begun, but much to her dismay, it had never truly recovered. 

She stalked into her office. There was a new detective for the Science Division who seemed interested in making the DEO jump through as many hoops as possible before he shared any cases. She was aware of how this riled up her agents, but had warned them more than once to keep it professional.

Agent Taverner knocked on the doorframe. “You asked to see me, Ma’am.”

Alex pointed at the end of the conference table. “You discharged your weapon this afternoon, is that correct?”

He clasped his hands behind his back. “Yes it is, Ma’am.”

“You shot and wounded an NCPD officer, is  _ that _ correct?”

“The NCPD returned-”

“We aren’t talking about the NCPD,” Alex snapped. “We’re talking about you. So, I’ll ask again. You shot and wounded an NCPD officer, is that correct, Agent Taverner?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“You fired at an NCPD officer, wounded him, and caused a brief violent exchange between NCPD and DEO squads, is that correct?”

“They were all warning shots, Ma’am-”

“Not all of them,” she snarled, leaning forward with her palms on the desk. “One of them found its way into his shoulder.”

He didn’t answer, and she lost her willingness to give him the time of day; losing patience, she glared straight at him. “You’re being discharged.”

“I’m what-?”

“You shot an NCPD officer, an officer of this city, because you lost your temper.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Yes, you did,” she growled. “Get out of my sight. Agent Lorraine will deal with your statement.”

Alex watched him go, toying with the electric blue band that J’onn had given her for her birthday.  She had learned the hard way that she couldn’t account for the bullets that were fired out of her agents’ weapons, and it was days like this where she was reminded of Jenny’s parents. But more worryingly, she tried to figure out exactly how things had spiralled into friendly fire. She would never have-

She dropped her head, smiling sadly to herself. Of course she would never. Her running partner hadn’t been Detective Pearson, it had been a woman she was in love with. 

After that, the DEO got deliberately left out of NCPD matters. Reports started going into the system later, which meant even Winn hacking them caused a delay in information. Fed up with being on the back foot, Alex decided to send J’onn on a goodwill mission.

“These hostilities with the NCPD can’t go on,” she sighed, raking a hand through her hair. “As great as all our resources are, we need local law enforcement to work with us. Either we get someone on the inside, or at least we get in Detective Pearson’s good books.”

“In all honesty, the only time we actually had good relations with the NCPD was when…” J’onn grimaced.

“When I was engaged to one of their detectives?” Alex finished, smiling wryly. She rubbed at her forehead. “Okay, I need you to pull up one of the FBI profiles from the database, and use that persona to get in and talk someone round. Either report to his superior officer, or try and find an ally we can rely on when things go wrong like this again.”

“Do you want me to use a real person because if I go as FBI, and they don’t recognise me as such...”

“You’ll smell of DEO in SciDiv, yeah.” Again, she found herself playing with the blue band.  “Give me an update this afternoon.”

“Yes, Ma’am”

She cringed. “I’m never going to get used to this, you know.”

“You should get used to respect for authority.”

“I called you sir all the time!”

“Not as much since you knew I wasn’t Henshaw.”

“True,” she admitted with a shrug.

“Have you thought about asking Sergeant Sawyer about coming back to be a liason? With her experience and understand of the DEO, she might make an excellent mediator.”

“I uh-” she stuttered. “I didn’t, I mean, you can. If-if you think it’s a good idea.”

He ducked his head. “If not, I’ll ask her to speak with Detective Pearson on our behalf, perhaps?”

She pressed her lips into a line, nodding rapidly as he turned and left. It had been six years, it might be a great time for Maggie to come back and work with the DEO. She had probably moved on, maybe she was married now. They could be colleagues, professionals, maybe even friends.

Upon his return, J’onn dropped a bomb in that gentle way that only he could.

“I spoke to Lieutenant Sawyer about Detective Pearson. She isn’t a part of the Science Division anymore, but assured me he won’t be a problem.”

Alex nodded, not registering anything around Sawyer until J’onn was walking away.

“Wait, did you just say Lieutenant?!”

~

Alex thought a lot about Maggie as they approached seven years apart, and wondered why now of all times it was coming up again and again in her mind.

Some nights, she slept straight through, exhausted but accomplished by the day. Others, she felt lonely in her bed. As a single woman, who’d thought herself broken and put herself back together, she wondered when she would be ready to let someone in again. She had her priorities, her work and her child, but on those nights when she would long to be held or to hold someone else, her bed felt too big.

Other nights still, she was reminded that she was still a healthy woman with healthy needs, and on those nights she recalled the two women with whom she had been so in love. Full of shame that she wouldn’t even admit it to herself, Rachael and Maggie occasionally blurred together, everything they did together in this bed, or in the old apartment. It left her feeling invigorated, and full of hope that she might find someone like that again, but in the morning light it was always laid bare; she was just getting herself off to the memories of old lovers.

And it was on a day she wasn’t thinking about Maggie when the universe began to knit them back together.

She had been let onto her balcony by Kara, and was rushing to change out of her DEO uniform when the knock came to the door.

“Coming!” she shouted, jumping into a pair of jeans and checking the zipper before padding over to her door.

As soon as Alex opened it, Jenny zoomed straight past her into the kitchen. She sighed, smiling gratefully at Kimberly and her daughter Natasha.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s no problem at all, Alex,” Kimberly insisted, smile broadening. “You know, Natasha’s birthday party is next week. We’d love for Jenny to come.”

“That sounds great.” Alex hunkered down. “What age are you going to be?”

“Six!” Natasha said, holding up six fingers.

“Fantastic!” Alex said, and then addressed Kimberly again as she stood. “Text me the details and I’ll leave Jenny round.”

Kimberly bit her lower lip. “Well actually, you’re free to stay on while the kids play.”

“Oh, um,” Alex edged, rubbing the back of her neck, thinking of the sickly sweet soccer moms. “I don’t really get on with the other moms.”

“Neither do I.” Kimberly shrugged a shoulder, slipping her hand into the back of her jeans. “I could use the company.”

Alex glanced behind her, watching Jenny hopping impatiently from foot to foot at the mouth of the hallway. “Call me.”

“I will,” Kimberly said, eyes darting up and down Alex’s frame before she led Natasha down to the stairs. 

Alex couldn’t fight a grin as she closed the door and leaned back against it, even if it was only in amusement. She shuffled into the kitchen, checking that the clothes she had hastily thrown on were indeed in their right place. 

Jenny leapt for one of the stools at the counter. It wobbled precariously. 

“Careful!” Alex cautioned, helping to steady it as Jenny climbed up. “How was school?”

“We had a policewoman in today,” she chirped, putting her backpack onto the island top.

“Oh, really?” Alex replied, going for the bowls. “Learn anything interesting?”

“Yes, we learned about traffic lights. I coloured some!”

Alex put the bowls on the island. “You did?”

Jenny nodded, and reached for her bag, unzipping it. She produced a crumpled page as Alex filled the bowls with cereal. After adding the milk and passing Jenny her favourite blue and white striped bowl, Alex smoothed the page out on the counter-top. The three circular lamps were coloured crudely, but she would proudly pin it up all the same.  

She tapped the third, blue light with a fingertip. “Sweetie, I think this one is supposed to be green.”

“No,” Jenny refused, shaking her hair and then taking a healthy spoonful of cereal.

Alex smiled. “Okay,” she said, and then kissed the top of Jenny’s head. “I’ll put it on the fridge.”

She pried two novelty Supergirl fridge magnets off of the fridge - _ boy, are you in for a shock when you find out Aunt Kara’s secret- _ and scattered the rest to make space for the page with the traffic light. She couldn’t help but think that when she went through that green light seven years ago, she had no idea that she would survive, that she could be here, a mother. With a daughter who-

“Mommy, why do you have pictures of the school police detective?”

The fridge magnets slipped straight out of Alex’s hand, the page whooshing to the floor. “What?”

“You and Auntie Kara were looking at pictures when we went to Nana’s.” Alex just about made the words out through the mouthful of cereal. Jenny hummed and swallowed, and then, “And the detective is there.”

Alex slowly turned to face her. Jenny swung her legs happily, oblivious of her mother’s impending emotional meltdown. She dug her spoon into the bowl, sending a splash of milk over the other side, and Alex was too frozen to tell her off or clean it up.

“I asked her but she didn’t know,” Jenny said. “Did you used to be friends?”

_ Maggie Maggie Maggie she’s talking about Maggie, she’s- _

Alex cleared her throat and bent down to get the magnet she had dropped. The other much have skidded under the fridge. “What’s her name, sweetie?”

Jenny made a hissing noise for a second and then said, “Sawyer!”

Like the shooting pain of a toothache, hearing that name out of her child’s mouth made Alex’s vision swim. Surely, this was a dream, or a hallucination. Perhaps she needed to call into the DEO-

Yet there, on the corner of the page was a fine, italicised print:

_ Child Safety Course taken by: Lt. Maggie Sawyer _


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And, well, that's that. Honestly, to everyone's that been following this series, thank you for all of your kind comments.

Once a week, Jenny raved about the police woman that came to her school.  _ Officer Sawyer _ cropped up in conversation as they travelled home, as she worked on her homework, during the ad breaks between TV shows, and even as she was being tucked into bed.  

Alex marvelled that there was ever a time that she had been worried Jenny wasn’t talking enough.

She obsessed over every detail. The temptation to ask more, to learn more about Maggie now, grew with every encounter that Jenny chattered about on a Tuesday evening, but she always managed to keep it in check. 

One particular day, Jenny skipped into Alex’s apartment, a beaming Winn in tow. He stayed for a cup of coffee, half-supervising as Jenny played a game on his phone. Alex slyly inquired into whether he was dating someone new, since he had broken up with her attorney. He squirmed in discomfort, explaining that he just wanted to be single and happy for a while. Then, as casually as she could, she brought up Maggie, and was quickly shut down. 

“Okay, yes, she asked me about you, but no, I’m not answering either of your sneaky questions,” he said, snapping his fingers at her. “I’m removing myself from the awkward asking about exes thing.”

When he left, Alex noticed the blue and green dinosaur band-aid over the girl’s knee.

“Jenny, did you hurt yourself?” she asked, kneeling down as Jenny threw herself up on the couch. 

“I fell in the playground and hurt my knee.” 

“Oh sweetie.” She pouted, but Jenny’s eyes were lit with glee. “Guess you’re all better now, right?”

“Yeah! Because guess what?”

“What?”

“Detective Sawyer fixed it!”

_ Of course _ , Alex thought, a smile tugging at her lips.

“Did she, now?” she muttered, smoothing her thumb over the dinosaur plaster.

“Mommy?”

Still distracted by image of Maggie patching up Jenny after a fall, Alex replied, “Yes?” 

“I wanna be a police officer!”

~

After a visit to Clark (which had to be extended because Kara insisted on staying to help eradicate the latest menace), she dropped in to surprise her favourite niece. It led to a spur of the moment Sister night, which neither Alex nor Kara was going to complain about. 

“How was Metropolis?” Alex asked, gently tilling Jenny’s bedroom door. 

“Apart from my eternal envy about the Daily Planet’s breakroom?” Kara snarked, following her into the kitchen. She propped up on an island stool, spinning slowly and staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling. Suddenly she gripped the bench, stopping herself; “Wait, I forgot to ask, how did parents’ evening go?”

Alex, who had been bouncing between two bottles of wine, finally made a decision and slid one out of the rack on the counter. “She’s doing pretty good. And her behaviour is immaculate, of course.” She grimaced at the stiff cork, eventually giving up and handing the bottle to Kara, who popped it with very little effort. 

“If her behaviour is immaculate, she clearly isn’t a Danvers, yet.”

Dismayed as she recalled the last comment that the teacher had made, Alex played with the ends of her hair, and then turned towards the cabinets. 

“It’s all pretty good, except Mrs Farmer said something about math.” She reached up for two glasses, wincing at a twinge in her side from a training class she had taken at the last minute. Her subordinate had fallen ill with food poisoning that afternoon, and now she wished she had asked someone else to step in. “Jenny’s scores aren’t bad, they’re just...a little under average.”

“Is she struggling?” Kara took the glasses and poured the wine. 

“No, I don’t think it’s that serious.” Alex nodded her head in thanks and took a sip, before swirling her glass. “I’m just gonna keep an eye out, especially when she’s doing her homework.”

“Good idea,” Kara appraised. Then she shifted, noticing something past Alex’s shoulder. She nodded in that direction. “That’s kinda ominous, with the blue light.”

“As someone who was in a near fatal crash at an intersection, yeah,” Alex said. She put her hands on her hips, which had been giving her more trouble lately, especially when she overexerted herself.

Going for the drawer next to the sink, Alex retrieved two spoons, even the slight movement of pushing the drawer in with her upper thigh irritating the strain of her joints. Trying to hide her limp, she gave Kara the spoons and went to the freezer.

“Now that you’ve reminded me about this,” Alex said, tapping the traffic lights and then yanking open the stiff freezer door. “There’s something else that I wanna talk to you about.”

“Oh?” Kara rested her elbows on the island. “That sounds a little heavy. Should we suspend Sister night in favour of hushed business night?”

“Uh, no,” Alex said, rolling her eyes and pulling out the tubs of ice cream. She closed the freezer and came back to the island, handing over Kara’s favourite flavour, to her delight. 

“Ah, the good stuff,” Kara quipped, taking the unopened carton of Ben & Jerry’s and surveying it like a vintage wine. “And how have you managed to keep Jenny from devouring this already?”

“What Jenny doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”

They snickered, prying open the lids and setting to work. Anxious about how to go about bringing up the topic of Maggie again after so long, Alex eagerly shovelled ice cream into her mouth. As the inevitable pain of brain freeze zipped up her neck and engulfed her skull, she put down her spoon, clutching her nape with a whine.

Kara stifled her giggles, waving her spoon. “Whatever it is, it’s that bad, huh?”

Reminded of the question at hand, Alex squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the punch of her pulse to subside before speaking.

“There’s this new initiative or scheme or something. A police officer has started attending Jenny’s class each week to teach them about stranger danger or how bad jaywalking is or…” She gestured behind her with a thumb, and then picked up her spoon again. “Traffic lights, apparently.”

“And…?” Kara drawled.

“And,” Alex said pointedly, tracing her spoon around the edge. “That  _ officer _ is Lieutenant Maggie Sawyer.”

“Maggie?” Kara drew upwards like a meerkat, fixing her glasses. “Like,  _ Maggie _ Maggie?”

“As opposed to the  _ other _ Maggie Sawyer that I was engaged to seven years ago?” Alex asked sardonically.

“Seven years. Wow.” Kara stuck her spoon into her ice cream so that it stood straight up and then crossed her arms over her chest. “Hey, maybe you two could be friends, now.”

Alex stared into the mash of chocolate and vanilla. As close as she and Kara were, she had never told her about the soul bond. While humans could not see the bonds like Cavurians could, Alex had more than once watched passerbys, colleagues, family, and wondered what exactly it was that tied them to their soulmates. She imagined that the bonds were like ethereal strings, changing colour depending on the moods of the pair, just like the lights under a Cavurian’s skin.

And, more than once, she had wondered if Kara knew more about it. While her sister had once told Rachael that she had never visited Cavura, she was aware of some of the religions practised, and the culture. In intergalactic terms, she was much further travelled than Alex, and would have seen a wealth of sights that might have provided a better insight into the physicality of soul bonds. 

But then, Kara might ask if Alex wanted to search for her soulmate, or worse, if she knew who her soulmate was. 

So she drove in the opposite direction. “Maybe. She could be married, now.”

Kara wiggled her spoon out of the ice cream, using it to punctuate her suggestion. “You two could catch up.”

“We could.”

They simply enjoyed their wine and ice cream for a minute or two, catching glances of each other but not breaking the silence, until Kara finally sighed. 

“We’re being very idealistic, aren’t we?”

“Yeah,” Alex murmured. 

It was irrational. The gap between the last time she saw Maggie and now was seven years. She had dated and slept with other women, as well as had one very serious relationship that she was still, in some ways, recovering from. And yet disappointment wedged itself between her heart and her head.

“Do you think if you saw her again, a part of you would still love her?”

Alex’s eyes snapped to Kara, and she reeled as if her ice cream tub had been smacked off of the island. “What kind of question is that?”

“Well, I mean, you two were so in love, and then you just weren’t together anymore. And you’ve changed, and she’s probably changed.” Kara grew nervous, fidgeting with the pattern on the top of her spoon. “I’m just wondering if love is...real. If it really lasts that long or if it’s always going to just...fizzle out, eventually, when you both change too or life gets too hard, or you’ve been apart for too long.”

Alex had been clamping down on her own tub, and the melting ice had soaked her hand. She wiped her damp palm on her jeans. “Okay, when did you get so cynical? Your promotion is going to your head.”

“It’s the natural progression of a journalist, Alex,” Kara deadpanned, seemingly glad to be back to banter after overstepping. “Eyes wide open, wet behind the ears, destined for the jaded, hardened life of an editor.”

“Oh, you think you’re gonna be an editor, huh?”

“One day, maybe,” Kara replied wistfully, waving her spoon. “I’ll be sitting in that glass office, glasses on the bridge of my nose, all the power in the world.”

Alex rolled her eyes at her sister’s dramatics, sliding away from the island and carrying her ice cream with her towards the living room. “And the minute you do, it’ll summon Cat Grant like a ghost. She’ll nip at your heels and toss you back out.”

Kara grinned, hopping off the stool. “We can only hope.”

“Come on, Kara Grant, we’ve got  _ London Calling _ to catch up on.”

~

Saturdays were for the two of them, emergencies aside. They watched morning cartoons in their pyjamas, crunching at cereal. Then Alex would get them ready and they would go out for a while. Jenny loved the playpark and watching all of the dogs running around in the grass.

Jenny kicked her feet in excitement at the opening titles of her favourite show, in which the lead character was an animated cat. Alex’s eyes roamed around her apartment. There was certainly place for a medium sized pet, at least. Maybe when Jenny was a little older, she would think about it again.

When they were ready to head out, Alex opened her closet and rattled for a coat to wear. She paused on Maggie’s leather jacket. It had been a staple of her wardrobe for years, blending into the other articles of clothing, letting her forget its history. But now it stuck out like a neon sign on a dark highway. 

She ran her hand over the leather sleeve, and didn’t think too hard about the decision to whip it off the hanger and put it over her shoulders.

It still fit like a glove. She angled in the mirror, smoothing down her hair with a smile-

“Mommy, are you ready?” an impatient voice called.

She smiled harder. “Yeah, Jenny, I’m coming.”

~

“...and she had a bouncy castle. Can I have a bouncy castle?”

Alex grinned down at Jenny, who jumped over imaginary hopscotch patterns on the ground as they walked through the park. For the last few minutes, she had been full of beans, recounting the tale of her friend Naomi’s birthday. It seemed like every other week, she was taking Jenny to some party or another. Not that she minded exactly, but the prickle of pressure to make Jenny’s own birthday extra special this year made itself known each time a birthday was brought up. 

At Jenny’s gasp, Alex stopped dead and looked down again. “What’s-?”

“Mommy, look! It’s the police officer who comes into our school!” Jenny tugged incessantly at Alex’s hand, until finally she broke free and made a run for it.

“Jennifer Danvers, get back here!” she shouted, eyes darting for what her-

_ Oh God. _

“Detective Sawyer!” Jenny called.

At the sound of the name, a figure turned. Alex’s chasing footfalls halted, and she stood stock still for a second as she watched Jenny run full pelt at Maggie Sawyer.

She had heard Jenny’s words, but hadn’t really registered what was happening. It was as if she’d compartmentalised so much, tried to shut off her obsession with hearing about  _ Lieutenant Maggie Sawyer _ , that she had gotten used to not reacting at the name, had reduced her to a concept. A frivolous thing her child spoke enthusiastically about.

But the face, the woman,  _ Maggie _ ; that was entirely different. She was completely unprepared.

Maggie crouched down and greeted Jenny with a smile, chatting easily with the girl, and Alex pressed on. It was seven years. They had both moved on.

_ I shouldn’t be feeling like this after seven years. _

She stopped just behind Jenny, anticipation thick as Maggie looked up and acknowledged her presence. It was only then, in the fresh air on a bright Saturday afternoon, that Alex realised the last time she had actually  _ seen _ Maggie had been tangled in her bedsheets after the building collapse. 

“Hello there,” Maggie said, voice soft.

Hair shorter, eyes wiser. But  _ God _ , Alex thought, was she still gorgeous. 

“Detective Sawyer,” Alex returned. “I’ve been hearing all about you from this one.” She ran her hand affectionately over the top of Jenny’s head.

“I bet it’s almost like you already know me.”

Alex flushed at the tease. Oblivious, Jenny bounced excitedly. “I  _ told you _ mommy had pictures of you!”

Maggie’s lips quirked into a sheepish smile, amused and a touch embarrassed. She stood up and brushed down her knees, and Alex scrambled to find something to say. Beating them to the chase, Jenny grabbed Maggie’s hand in her own smaller one.

“Will you come and get ice cream with us?” she pleaded.

Alex, exasperated, tried to be diplomatic. “Jenny, Detective Sawyer is very busy. She probably has things-”

“It’s okay. I’ll come.” She arched an eyebrow at Jenny. “But only if I can get mint.”

With a happy cheer, Jenny tore off in the direction of the nearest ice cream truck.

“You don’t still eat gross vegan ice cream?” Alex murmured, immediately kicking herself for voicing the first thing that came to mind.

“If there’s anyone I’m gonna make an exception for, it’s your kid, Danvers,” Maggie replied.

They walked without speaking for a few heartbeats, Alex drawing a blank. All of those things that she had dreamed, wished, fantasised about saying to Maggie if she ever ran into her again were gone. It was as if the universe had separated them for as long as it could, before jamming them back together at the most off-guard time. 

“I’ve never been very good at small talk,” Alex said finally, her hands slipping into her jacket pockets.

Maggie nodded, looking off to the side. Chuckling at something between the trees, she turned her attention back to Alex, sparking a fire inside when she said; “You look good.”

Alex huffed out a breath. “Thanks.” She glanced at Maggie, but didn’t feel brave enough to hold her eye. “You too, by the way.”

“Well, I did say you looked good in my jacket, didn’t I?”

Alex looked down, snapping out of her reverie and recounting how she had postured in front of the mirror. If this was a trick, then fate was a masterful joker. The compliment continued to buzz in Alex’s head, preventing her from protesting as Maggie jumped in and bought ice cream for the trio. 

They chose a bench at the side of a playpark. Despite a soft rebuke from her mother, Jenny inhaled her cone. It was pointless to tell her otherwise when it came to food, a habit she had no doubt picked up from Kara, so Alex waved her off. The girl thundered away, heading towards the park, targeting the slide. 

Alex tried to pin down a starting point, now that she had Maggie more or less alone. But all she could muster, regardless of her earlier excuse, was small talk. “So, how are you? J’onn said you made lieutenant?”

“Well, they made me lieutenant for now. They’re trying to convince me to stay on and accept the promotion. Otherwise they’ll have to reshuffle or look externally.” Maggie dug the neon blue spoon into her ice cream. “And you? Still Director Danvers?”

Pride swelled in Alex’s chest. The title hadn’t phased her when she got it, nor when she was referred to by it, and yet hearing it from Maggie filled her head with hot air. “You heard about that?”

“I heard about that.”

Alex kept stealing glances of Maggie, and every time, she was watching Jenny. She couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind, that they should meet like this, in this situation, but while she felt sympathy for Maggie, she didn’t feel ashamed. She loved Jenny and wouldn’t chose any other path in this life, even with the knowledge that this woman beside her was her soulmate.  

“Your kid is really smart,” Maggie declared suddenly, pointing at Jenny with her spoon. “Not that I would expect any different.”

Alex watched Jenny swinging from the monkey bars. “She’s excelling in most areas, but she’s lagging a little in math. I’m not too concerned at this stage but…” She sighed, digging back into her ice cream.

“She’s a kid. Give it time.”

_ Right _ . Alex was equally wanted to stretch this encounter for as long as she could, and to end it as swiftly as possible. How many times had she fantasised about meeting Maggie again? In none of those scenarios had her tongue lay so unmoveable in her mouth.

“Gotta admit,” Maggie said, tipping her tub and scraping the ice cream to one side. “Ice cream in the park on a sunny day is way better than trying to get Emily to come to dinner.”

Alex snorted, locking some of the runaway ice cream from her finger. Humour saved face, and it was only appropropriate to respond in kind. 

“Glad that I rank higher in your ex approval rating.”

~

They spent half an hour together in the park, and ended up walking back to Alex’s apartment. Regardless of whether Maggie had anything else she wanted to talk about, Jenny preoccupied most of the conversation, barraging her with questions, and that selfish, obsessed part of Alex revelled in each new piece of information.

Eventually, once the initial sheen of seeing Maggie outside of the classroom wore off, Jenny was content to skip between them, sometimes holding tightly to Alex’s hand, sometimes a few feet ahead. 

“You know, if I’m being honest,” Maggie said quietly, watching Jenny hopping between cracks in the sidewalk. “I thought you would have been married by now, Danvers.”

Inwardly, she commended Maggie’s courage to be the one to dip her toe into the water. The detective had obviously spotted the absence of anything on her ring finger. With the secret that Alex kept about them, she figured that there was no other fair option than to be honest. 

“Me too,” she said mournfully, thinking of those perfect afternoons with Jenny and Rachael, thinking about before that; those perfect moments with Maggie.

Jenny bopped back to them, pointing at the ground. “Mommy, look, it’s a snail!”

Alex stopped, crouching down to Jenny’s height, seeing the brown shell slithering along a crack in the concrete. She caught Maggie watching them curiously.

“You’ll have to be careful. You’ll crush him if you step on him,” Alex warned, taking her daughter’s hand and standing up again.

“Has that happened before?” Maggie asked.

Alex lowered her voice as they side-stepped the snail. “She only stopped crying to sleep.”

They reached the apartment building. Maggie hummed, impressed as she scanned up the red brick front. Alex smiled at that.

“Say thank you to Detective Sawyer for the ice cream,” Alex said.

“Thank you,” Jenny said, waving. “Goodbye.”

Maggie grinned. “See you on Tuesday.”

Jenny skipped up the stairs to the building, and they went from the innocent comfortable bubble that children brought with them, back into the cold reality they lived in.

“It was good to see you, today,” Alex said, hands skittering across her stomach and hips. “Thanks again for everything with Jenny. She won’t stop talking about you.”

Maggie nodded, glancing at the top of the stairs, where Jenny skipped from foot to foot, waiting on Alex.  “Hey, I don’t want this to sound too forward or anything, and if you want me to disappear let me know but…”

“But?” Alex prompted.

Maggie rocked on her heels for a beat or two, and then; “Wanna grab some coffee? I had fun talking to you and I’d like to catch up a little more.”

Alex looked up at Jenny, who had stopped jumping around and was now observing them. For a crystal clear moment, Alex was back in her old apartment, staring at the ceiling, Rachael’s words ricocheting off the walls of her skull.  _ Soulmates _ .

Her heart ached.  _ Rachael, you knew. _

“Dinner on me?” She paused to make a face at her nosy daughter. Between a reporter for an aunt and a secret agent for a mother, she had learned to pay attention. “As a thank you for the ice cream, and for all the laughter?”

Maggie chuckled. “I’m not gonna turn that offer down, Danvers.”

Alex turned back to her, a wide smile splitting her face.

~

When they both negotiated that they were free the rest of the evening, Alex called her sister for babysitting duties. While she was on the phone, she tried not to smile at how Jenny eagerly grabbed Maggie’s hand and started pulling her this way and that around the apartment.

_ “You want me to come over on a Saturday?” _

“Yeah, is that alright?” Alex asked quietly, glancing up as Maggie nodded along, engaged in the story that Jenny was telling about Marshmallow. 

_ “Babysitting on a Saturday? Is there something you forgot to tell me?” _

“Not exactly.” Alex rubbed the back of her neck with her other hand. “Can you come or not?”

_ “Alex, of course. I just- I’m surprised that you’re…” _

“That I’m…?”

Kara paused, and then gently said; _ “I’m just glad that you’re getting yourself out there again.” _

Alex pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not what you think, Kara. Just...come over as soon as you can?”

Kara was over in no time, chasing her giggling niece once around the entire living room before even noticing the other person present.

“Sergeant Sawyer,” Kara said, blindsided. She glanced at Alex, and then Maggie, and did the math. “Hello, Maggie.”

“Hey, Kara,” Maggie said. “And it’s Lieutenant Sawyer, actually. For now.”

Alex scooped Jenny up onto her hip. The first grader was vibrating with excitement, and she caught Maggie’s smirk.

“Is Detective Sawyer staying for dinner?” Jenny piped up.

Alex smiled. “No, honey, the detective and I are going out. You’re going to have dinner with Auntie Kara.”

Jenny pouted. “No dino nuggets?”

Kara stepped in, tickling Jenny under the arms. “Oh, we’ll still have dino nuggets.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “We might even a cookie after.”

This brightened the girl up dramatically, and she wriggled to get free of Alex’s arms. “Auntie Kara, come see what I did at school yesterday!”

As soon as Alex put her down, she ran to her bag but got distracted by something inside, leaving the three adults alone in the kitchen. While the initial surprise had worn off, Kara still seemed perplexed at Maggie’s presence.

Alex checked her watch, and then put a hand on Maggie’s bicep. “Give me ten minutes to change and I’ll be ready to go.”

Maggie nodded and Alex walked away. (She could still feel a tingling in her palm as she walked to her bedroom).

The door closed with a click and she sagged back against it. Briefly, she closed her eyes, expecting to wake up on the couch to a crash of an unsupervised child breaking something, and have this all be some surreal dream. 

She moved to the wardrobe, every piece of attire seeming like it belonged to someone else. After a minute or so of deliberation, she took two blouses and draped them over the bed. She put her hands on her hips, brushing her fingertip over a thick scar under the material of her shirt, deciding. 

And then a soft knock; timid, tiny knuckles on the door. 

Alex smiled at the familiar sound. She crossed to the door, revealing Jenny and Marshmallow, mischief dancing in the girl’s eyes.

“Can I help you?” Alex asked, bemused.

“Marshmallow wanted to say hello,” Jenny said coyly. 

Alex could hear Maggie and Kara talking in the kitchen, and she just about stopped herself from eavesdropping as she glanced over her shoulder. 

“Does Marshmallow want to help me choose my outfit?” Jenny looked at the bunny, and then shook it like it was nodding its head. “Okay.”

Alex went to the bed, lifting the two hangers. She held them up, first a crimson, then a blue. Jenny squinted, humming as she considered each. She turned her back on Alex, holding Marshmallow up to her ear and pretending to listen as he whispered to her. 

Alex bit the inside of her cheek, waiting for the judgement call.

Jenny spun back around. “He said the red one.”

“Thank you, Marshmallow,” Alex said. “The red one it is.”

~

Since it was a little early for dinner, she suggested that they try one of the nearby cafes. In the days when they were engaged, they would grab coffee and something to go from one of the places around Alex’s apartment, but with the passing of time and changing of hands, they had all transformed into new establishments with unrecognisable banners. There was nowhere that was  _ theirs _ anymore, and Alex weighed up whether that was disheartening, or whether it let them escape any possible emotional baggage.  

A nice evening weekend crowd milled around them as they brought their order to an outside table. At first, conversation was rusty, but once Alex said something that drew a sharp laugh, they got lost in a flurry of topics. They discussed Jenny, their work and subsequent promotions, J’onn’s mission to search out Green Martians.

As Maggie talked, Alex noticed how the evening sun brought out those amber flakes in her eyes. She had more laughter lines, a more honeyed voice, and occasionally, a more hardened attitude towards things, but she was still every inch the woman that Alex knew had been destined for her. 

And while she had long ago accepted that the course of their lives led them in two very separate, very concrete directions, the burden of that knowledge was difficult to cast off completely. 

Out of the blue, Maggie sat up straight. “Dinner?”

Alex looked over at the belltower, blinking in surprise at the time. “Oh, okay. I didn’t realise…”

They wandered around the corner to  _ Oro Puro,  _ a restaurant that she had been to a handful of times. She had treated her mother once, another time it was Rachael, another time a woman she had met through work that she couldn’t quite remember the name of. 

“This place is nice,” Alex said, craning her head up at the fairylights crowning the restaurant, picturing the rooftop terrace. “It does nice pasta.”

“Lead the way,” Maggie said.  

A woman in the black and white restaurant uniform greeted them from a boxed in cloakroom and tapped at a computer as she booked them in for table. She offered to take their jackets, and they shared a single look before agreeing.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Alex said, slipping off her jacket. “How exactly does a narcotics detective get roped into giving a first grade class stranger danger talks?”

“Oh, well, just wait until the one about what to do when you find dirty needles in the playground.” Her face went slack in surprise, and Maggie laughed heartily. “I’m kidding. No need to go all One Million Moms on me.”

Maggie took her keys and phone out of her jacket pocket before handing it to the woman in the cloakroom, and Alex suppressed a smile as she did the same. As they were led upstairs to the terrace, her heart hammered in her chest, and a phantom force tugged at her.

Taking their seats and thanking the server for the menus, Maggie planted her keys on the table top.

“Still don’t trust anyone not to steal your keys?” Alex asked, flipping open her menu.

“Like you haven’t done the same?”

Alex rolled her eyes, but retrieved her keys from her pocket and set them beside Maggie’s. “I’m just assuming the worst about people.”

They got settled in, exchanging more stories from the last seven years, skirting around any major, heavy subject. Honestly, Alex spent a lot of the time trying to focus on the food, not letting herself fully relax into Maggie’s presence, because she knew her mind would stray into believing that this was something it was not.

National City’s nightlife stirred as the sun went down. Half-distracted by the sight of a woman nearby whose dessert came, Maggie asked; “Hey, do you wanna split a slice of-”

“Tiramisu?” Alex finished, amused. Sheepish, Maggie nodded. “Sure.” 

To her credit, Maggie remained safe, never straying too close to the line, until the dessert arrived.

“So does Jenny-” Maggie glanced around them as she sank her spoon into the dessert. “Does she know that her Auntie Kara is Supergirl?”

“No, God no. Not yet.” Alex scooped her own bite. She used to recover rapidly from a scare at work, but now, nightmares plagued her for days. “I’m terrified that someone will use her as collateral, some day.”

Maggie chewed slowly, digesting the information. “You’d never let anyone hurt her.”

“Over my dead body,” Alex confirmed, gripping her spoon and plunging it harder into the desert.

Maggie seemed unsurprised. “Is she your biological daughter?”

Alex shook her head. “Adopted.”

Maggie left the door open for an explanation, but Alex continued to eat. She wasn’t sure whether the woman really wanted to hear the story, or if she was being polite. Tiramisu thick on her tongue, she stared out at the minefield, not certain if she should press forward. 

“Do I get a story?” Maggie finally prompted.

Swallowing, Alex wavered. “Do you want to hear it?”

“Absolutely. I’ve had to entertain a lot of your kid’s wacky ideas in the classroom, so I wanna know her villainous backstory.”

Alex laughed at that, some of the tension draining away. She remembered Jenny, so small, curled up asleep on her lap as she grappled with CPS. The agony of the bonding in the observation room. The gentle way Rachael had spoken to Jenny as she slept. 

And there, something dislodged. Alex shaved the story down into its bare bones, carving out all the deep seated grief and pain that she had buried under time and distance. 

She didn’t start with the woman in the bar, the kiss in the bathroom, the nights spent discovering each others’ bodies and she definitely did not start with the magic of the bond. She reduced her heartbreak to a concept, even though it left a sour taste in her mouth.

“I was dating an alien named-”

“ _ You _ dated an alien?”

“A few, actually,” Alex admitted, and then began again. “But Rachael was special. She was the only one who ever knew I worked for the DEO, and that’s only because when we started getting serious, J’onn went on his sabbatical and I was promoted.”

“Wow, look at you and your dodgy ethics,” Maggie jeered.

“I think she was uh-” Alex flicked her eyes up to Maggie’s and then away again, the dulled pain in her heart sharpening as she revisited feelings she knew by now she should have moved past. “I think she was the only woman since you that I really loved.”

“Oh,” Maggie paused, “And Jenny?” 

Alex rested her spoon on the edge of the bowl, swiping her mouth with a napkin. Her hands trembled, and as pathetic as it was, she was scared that Maggie would see her so weakened by the memory. “One of my agents killed her parents by accident. They were innocent passerbys during an operation. Vertillians pretending to be humans, you know? Except these folks, they were actually human. Wrong place, wrong time.”

She slowly tore her napkin in half, hearing the shots ringing in her ear as Benston fired his weapon. She lowered her voice. “I brought this scared, traumatised toddler to the DEO, and she just clung to me. I remember thinking she was like a little duckling imprinting.” She took a deep breath. “She screamed every time someone tried to take her away from me. And then suddenly I just- I didn’t want to be away from her.”

“You took her in because of guilt?”

Alex’s fists tightened on the ripped napkin. “I took her in because I wanted her.”

Like a phantom, it was there. The observation room, suffocating as she fell to her knees. Kara’s cry of distress when she found her sister jerking in the aftermath of the bonding, Rachael’s wrath lingering in her veins like venom; “Rachael said the same thing. We argued a lot about it, especially the first few nights in our apartment. It was hard, suddenly adjusting to the idea of looking after a toddler. But then it just...became easier, and Rachael came around.  

“We almost broke up, multiple times, but it all settled and it was really good for a while. Months, actually. We were like-” 

_ -a real family.  _

Alex hit a brick wall. The words bombarded her, urging her to finish her sentence, but she couldn’t. Her jaw locked, and she took a deep breath before prying it open and continuing. She was vaguely aware that she was shaking all over. 

“Then, we got a distress signal in from her family. We agreed that she should travel back to her home planet, and when she got back, we could try patch things up properly, be a real family, maybe. When she left, we were on pretty good terms. I was hopeful.”

“And when she came back?”

Throat dry, Alex reached for her water, barely getting it to her lips. She took a long draw, letting it temporarily soothe her, and then;

“She was Cavurian.”

The last two years had been anything but a breeze, but right now it was like they hadn’t passed at all. Visceral, those memories scorched her mind’s eye; her disassociation when Winn was trying to comfort her, a voice she couldn’t recognise as her own asking for Jenny, retching on her knees in the DEO bathrooms, Kara taking her home and cradling her like a lost child. 

The breath rushed out of Maggie. “Oh, Alex, I’m so sorry-”

“It’s okay,” Alex said quickly, trying to cauterize the old wound that had suddenly reopened, forcing herself back to the restaurant. “It was two years ago. I just…I haven’t really dated since.”

Tears came, and this time she let Maggie see that part of her was still broken before blinking them away. “I miss her all the time,” she admitted quietly.

Maggie put her spoon down and wiped her mouth with her own napkin. In her expression, Alex found that gentle, patient compassion, and she soaked it up, letting it heal her temporarily. Gathering her senses, she let the pleasant atmosphere of the terrace guide her away to a different discussion.

“You know,” Alex said, picking up her spoon and setting it against the inside of the bowl this time. “I was in a really bad motorcycle accident about six? Seven years ago? It was just after you disappeared- uh, when you went undercover with Turncoat.”

“I know.”

Alex frowned. “You do?”

Maggie cocked her head. “Wait, Kara didn’t tell you she saw me?”

“She told me after I got your note that she ran into you once when you were undercover. That you were alive. She didn’t mention anything about telling you…”  _ That I almost died. “... _ my condition.”

Maggie stared at her across the table, and for a few seconds, Alex listened to the chatter of the other diners and the soft lull of stringed instruments over the speakers, apprehension growing at what was about to be revealed.  

Then, Maggie snorted. “Kara Danvers learned to bend the truth at last.”

“What do you mean?”

“I came to see you in the hospital, Danvers.”

It didn’t register right away, the chatter and music filling the gap in her synapses. And then, the meaning rang out in her head. She remembered the bitterness when she was in that wheelchair, curling her fists on her thighs because she thought Maggie hadn’t come. She remembered all the humiliation fuelled by that same bitterness. She remembered the self-loathing and the constant longing for Maggie to pay just one visit.

She remembered it all. 

“I’d given Darla a number to call for emergencies, and I was only three weeks into the Operation Turncoat when she called. I was mad until she told me what happened. Her girlfriend at the time was one of your ICU nurses, sneaked me in. Just before I left, I ran into Kara.”

Feeling small but speaking bravely, Alex asked, “You broke cover to visit me?”

“It was bad, at the beginning. Really bad. And I couldn’t have lived with myself if…”

Alex shook her head slowly, her hair falling around her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say. I was so relieved when I got your note, when I got that confession out of Kara that you were alive.” Her lips twitched and she looked away as she grew bashful, figuring honesty was the still best route. “I read her article over and over again until I could practically say the words out loud myself.”

“Oh yeah?” Maggie chuckled. “It was a pretty good scoop for her.”

Alex finished her water and reached to pour more out of the jug on the table. Maggie nodded when she offered to refill her glass too. She impressed herself by keeping a fairly steady hand as though the emotional rollercoaster of the past ten minutes hadn’t affected her at all. 

“You were there when I was promoted to sergeant, weren’t you?” Maggie asked.

Alex set the jug down and rotated it by the handle a few inches. She wanted to ask if the woman that had been there was still in the picture, the shapeshifter, but she was in no position to put such a bold foot over the line. Instead, she decided that since she had already implied her retroactive lovesickness, she should go ahead and imply a little more. 

“I was there through the whole ceremony, but I got cold feet and left before I could talk to you.”

“Count yourself lucky you didn’t stick around. You would have had to see some overweight chiefs trying to flirt with Supergirl.”

“Embarrassing,” Alex hissed.

Maggie grinned. “Jenny wants to be a cop, right?”

Alex narrowed her eyes, picking up her spoon again and jabbing it in Maggie’s direction. “Don’t you dare.”

~

It was a fair Saturday night, and they decided to walk back home. They continued to rib each other over old memories, good times, until their laughter tapered off to a comfortable silence. 

Walking side by side with Maggie, Alex thought how she had never felt anything resembling their soul bond before, wasn’t even sure if it was something that humans could  _ physically _ feel. And yet now, there was that tug, like something twitching under her breastbone. 

While Maggie hadn’t mentioned that she was dating anyone, Alex despaired at the fact that reconciliation was off the cards, motherhood the barrier that would separate them for the rest of their lives. 

Maggie nudged Alex’s elbow with her own, jilting her from her thoughts. “What’s on your mind?”

The clock on the belltower chimed, signalling the hour. Alex waited until the clanging noise had stopped before answering, “Did you come to say goodbye? In the hospital?”

Clouded with the images she had conjured up of the soul bond, and the texts she had studied about Cavurian physiology, Alex surprised herself at the random question. 

“I really hoped it wasn’t the end , but it was a bike crash. Your chances weren’t great. I mean, I knew you were a fighter and all but...”

A horn blasted a street over, and Alex recalled those blinding lights as she was thrown from her bike onto the road. The bone-white, solemn features of the doctor as he explained to her what the extent of her injuries were. The humiliation of having to be helped to the bathroom at almost thirty years old by her mother, or a nurse in those very early days.

“It was all I thought about for days after,” Maggie continued gravely. “I kept having this voice in my head, reminding me that at any moment, Eliza and Kara and everyone could be stood around your bedside, switching off the machines. It made me sick to my stomach.”

Alex absorbed the information with a slow nod. She shouldn’t have been surprised at Maggie’s admission, they had been engaged, after all. But part of her still was. 

“Grace told me you weren’t in any pain so I guess part of me thought that was the best way if you were gonna, y’know, go,” Maggie said.

Visions of struggling to take more than a handful of steps without sweating or crying in frustration, snapping at Winn when he tried to give her some perspective, and her shock at learning what they had done with her hips filled her head.  

“Believe me, when I woke up, there was a lot of pain,” Alex said dryly.

They shared a hollow laugh, before the sombre mood descended again as they reached the main street.

“When I saw those lights, I thought it was over.” She remembered how the car clipped her bike and sent her flying through the air.

_ No no nonono- _

Traffic was quiet, and easy on this particular stretch of the city, but it had been a similar area where a driver skipped a red and almost ended her life, and from then on, she never fully trusted the road again.

“I thought about all of the people who mattered most to me.” Her eyes dropped to their feet, counting the cracks in the pavement, all of the uncertainty and anguish coming back to her from seven years ago like the last tendrils of a dream. “I thought about you being missing, and I just...you were there Maggie. Kara and Mom and Dad and J’onn and... you .”

Maggie didn’t reply to that, and while Alex felt self-conscious at how vulnerable the confession was, she was paradoxically freed by it.

She winced as a bump in the sidewalk flared up her hip, and she changed the pace of her steps slightly, causing Maggie to notice.

“You okay?”

Alex shrugged a shoulder, brushing off the concern, embarrassed at the ache. “The crash did some nasty work on my hips. When I’m on my feet all day, it can get a little stiff at night. Hence the limp.”

Maggie checked her watch and groaned. “I didn’t mean to keep you out so long, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” Involuntarily, a smile burst across Alex’s face. “I had a good time.”

They stayed quiet until they reached the bottom of Alex’s steps. Maggie tapped the railing a few times, and then said, “I always thought you were the one that got away, Danvers.”

_ I know that one day, she could come back to you. _

Alex closed her eyes as Rachael’s voice filtered into her head, thinking that either the universe was giving her a gift of pure gold, or enacting the cruellest joke that had ever been played on her. She had the urge to smile, even as bittersweet tears threatened, and nodded before reopening her eyes.

“Keep in touch? Then I won’t be away.”

Maggie fished out her phone, navigated to a saved note, and then handed it over. “Here’s my new number.”

As Alex carefully typed the number into her own phone, Maggie tapped the railing again and joked, “I hope Jenny is in bed sleeping. I know tomorrow is Sunday, but still.”

Alex scoffed, dozens of other occasions flitting through her mind. Her sister and Jenny together without supervision tended to dissolve into a sugar-fuelled nightmare. “Unlikely, if her Auntie Kara has anything to do with it.”

When Maggie took her phone back, their fingertips brushed momentarily. Alex cleared her throat, yanking back her hand like it had been scalded. She jammed it into her pocket. “You know, if you ever want to come and get ice cream with us again, I’m sure Jenny would be over the moon.”

Maggie nodded. “Sure.”

Such a simple answer, but Alex’s stomach went up in fireworks. “It’s the usual Saturday afternoon activity.” She shrugged.

“Should I wear my uniform next time?”

The fireworks fizzled out, replaced with the unstoppable, familiar drumbeat of arousal. “If you want.”

Maggie grinned, showing her dimples, and the drum thumped harder. “Maybe I should bring my new puppy. I’ll have her by then.”

Alex laughed, imagining her daughter around a yapping, bouncing ball of fluff. “Jenny really doesn’t need to be more excitable.”

Softening, Maggie tipped her chin. “It could be fun, though?”

Inside, the drums melted away, flooding her veins with warmth as she listed closer. “Yeah, I think it could be.”

~

Alex watched Maggie walking away, and then stayed out in the night air for a while.

It felt like a dream, this whole day. She still fully expected to be woken up any moment by a wriggling five year old begging her to come and watch cartoons.

She ducked inside of her building. Watching the elevator numbers grind past, Alex caught sight of herself in the mirror. She looked happier,  _ healthier _ than she had been in a while. Maybe that was the gift of closure.

The elevator pinged open, and she wandered out, frowning at her shoes. She didn’t  _ feel _ like tonight meant closure, but perhaps she had to accept that living in this world without her soulmate by her side meant that she would never have it.

The time on her phone screen told her it was much later than she expected to be home. She dug into her jacket for her keys, and stopped when she felt them much lighter than usual. She extracted them slowly, and then felt a throb of distress when she saw that the keyring holding the picture of her, Kara and Jenny was missing-

She inspected the keys more closely, the motorcycle one especially.

_ I don’t own a Triumph- _

She had Maggie’s keys. They lifted the wrong keys leaving the restaurant, too engaged in the playful banter. She groaned, taking out her phone and typing out a text to Maggie.

Then she gently rapped her knuckles against the door. A perturbed Kara answered.

“Why are you knocking on your own door?” she asked, stepping back to let Alex into her apartment.

She swang Maggie’s keys. “Mix up.”

Kara made a noise in her throat, shutting the door and then going over to the couch where Jenny was curled up asleep under a Supergirl blanket. The TV was muted, and the fire that Kara had lit was dying down into glowing embers.

“How did it go?” Kara asked.

Alex ambled over to stoke the fire back to life, throwing on another log. “It went well. We talked about a lot.”

“Like…?” Kara drawled suggestively.

She turned, still holding the poker in her grasp. “She told me she came to see me in the hospital after the crash.”

Kara’s slyness dropped, and she had the decency to look apologetic. “Sorry?”

“Kara!” Alex hissed, trying not to wake Jenny as she pointed the poker at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t know how! She had to hold me together when I thought you were going to…” She trailed off and looked at her sleeping niece.

Alex carefully set the poker back against the fireplace. She looked at the framed photographs along the top, and something finally made sense.

“That’s what you were going to tell me in Midvale last year,” Alex said, picking up a picture of her and Rachael, cradling it.

“Yes,” Kara admitted. “I just thought about those photographs and that night came back in full force. She loved you so much, Alex.”

“Before she…” Alex started. She set the photograph back on the mantel, giving it a last longing look before turning away. “Rachael told me that human soulmates are real, and Cavurians could see the soul bonds.”

She heard the sadness and acceptance in Rachael’s voice the night she had revealed it. “She told me mine could come back to me, one day.”

“Back? She meant Maggie.” Kara looked up in astonishment. “And now you...?”

“Are you asking me what I think or what I feel?” Alex laced her hands behind her neck. “Tonight was amazing. We just talked and it was like seven years fell away, like- God, like all of this was inevitable.”

Kara gave a small smile, brushing her fingers through Jenny’s hair. “I think you know what you need to do, Alex.”

Jenny mumbled in her sleep, shuffling up into her aunt’s touch. Kara glanced at her, continuing more cautiously. “But what about all of this?” She gestured with her free hand to the apartment. “I mean, you’ve both got very different lives now. You’re a mother, for one.”

Alex dropped her hands, letting them swing at her sides. “I guess I just need to know if there’s something left there. If there will always be something there. Because if she thinks it’s worth salvaging…”

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she read the message. Maggie was on her way back. The fire snapped as it came back to life.

“Today might not be a coincidence, neither might those keys,” Kara said casually. “But do what’s right for you, Alex. Even if Rachael was right, don’t let yourself get overwhelmed in the moment.”

Alex slipped her phone back into her pocket, watching Jenny’s small shoulders rise and fall with sleep. She nodded, quietly thanking Kara.

Then she went to the door, questioning what indeed the right thing was for her now. 

~

When she got outside, she eased down onto the steps to wait.

Alex fiddled with Maggie’s keys and thought about how much had changed over the last seven years, and how much had stayed the same. Dinner was all it took to make her fall in love again, that hadn’t changed. But could she fall as deeply as before, considering the dead tissue left behind after her months of grief? Was it fair to expect Maggie to try and put those still splintered pieces of her back together?

How many firsts had they already missed out on in their promised lifetime? 

She wondered if Maggie kept the hockey puck.

Alex wasn’t sure how long she sat there when she heard a car door slam.

“Danvers!”

She looked up in surprise, Maggie’s keys in her palm. Standing, one hand gripped the railing for support as her body protested. She held the keys up, but grew concerned when a flustered Maggie shook her head.

“This isn’t a mistake,” Maggie said seriously, stopping with a fair distance between them.

Frowning, Alex opened her mouth but Maggie held up Alex’s keys.

“Yes, the keys were a mistake, but listen,” she rushed, coming a step closer. “Do you think...I mean, we’d have to take it so slow, Alex. The issues that broke us up, we haven’t had time to even  _ look _ at them together in seven years. And we’ve changed so much, and been through so much since. But I can’t help thinking that this is a sign, or something. And I just, I need to know if there’s a chance-”

Her speech faltered, face going blank in surprise as if she hadn’t expected to say it. Now, more than ever, Alex felt the tug strengthening beneath her breast bone, whether it was psychosomatic or real. 

“I just-” She stopped, waiting.

Well, that answered whether Maggie was single or not.

Finally, Alex let out a shuddery breath, coming down off of the stairs. “Oh, thank  _ God _ .”  

Keys clattered to the pavement as Alex strode towards her, slight limp and all, cupping her cheeks and kissing her. Maggie dropped Alex’s keys as she slid her arms around Alex’s waist to hold her closer, kissing back.

_ She’ll come back to you, Alex. _

Eventually, Alex pulled back and pressed their foreheads together. Her thumbs brushed against Maggie’s cheekbones. “I was waiting on you to come back to me.”

“I was only gone for forty minutes.”

_ I want you to be happy with her. _

Shaking her head, Alex murmured, “You’ve been gone a lot longer than that.” She stole another kiss and then, “Does this mean you want your jacket back?” She grinned, hoping the tease would sink in.

_ Promise me, you’ll be happy. _

Maggie nuzzled their noses together, swaying them slightly under the streetlights.

“Yeah, Danvers. I want it all back.”

Alex closed her eyes, continuing to brush her thumbs across Maggie’s cheeks.

_ I promise. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To those amongst you who have read the last two chapters of s&w, you may see a clue as to where 4x02 will be set... 
> 
> Come chat: @santonaranja


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